Owner Comments:
Pictured above is a 1767-A French Colonies Sou graded VF 35 by PCGS, with a CAC sticker affixed. Its obverse features two crossed scepters, in the posture of a Saltire Cross. One scepter is capped with a fleur-de-lis, while the other is topped with a "main de justice", the hand of justice. The L. and XV, appearing on either side of the scepters, stand for the then reigning King of France, Louis XV. The "A" establishes that this Colonies Francoises piece was struck at the Paris Mint. The reverse displays three fleur-de-lis within a crowned closed wreath, symbolic of the Bourbon Kings. The peripheral Latin legend translates into "Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord." Between the last letter of the word Benedictum and the date 1767, is a croisette potencee, which served as the legally required symbol of the mint's chief engraver, Charles Norbert Roettier. The best preserved sou is a unique specimen striking, graded SP 67 BN by PCGS. This is believed to be the highest grade ever assigned to a colonial era coin.
To put this coin into historical prospective, France had recently lost permanent possession of Canada to Great Britain as a result of the Seven Years' War that ended in 1763. As a result, the sou was created as an officially made piece, specifically intended for use in the remaining French West Indies (Caribbean).
The lack of small change available for use in commerce was a chronic problem in the French colonies. Seeking to remedy this, in November of 1766 Louis XV signed an edict authorizing the production of 1.6 million copper sous. By law, French colonists were legally required to accept up to five sous in current transactions. Failure to abide would result in a specified fine.
For some inexplicable reasons, the large initial emission of sous failed to widely circulate for a number of years. By 1789, with the onset of the French Revolution, which lasted about 10 years, the political climate had changed. In September of 1793, the Extraordinary Assembly of Guadeloupe decreed that the monarchical symbolism embodied in the undistributed sous, was to be obliterated with an oval counter-stamp that read "RF" standing for Republique Francaise. The crowned wreathed fleur-de-lis were part of these offending elements. Walter Breen has suggested that as many as 98% of the originally minted sous were ultimately counter-stamped. This elevated the uncounter-stamped specimens to a status of rarity. In higher levels of preservation, they are worth much more than counter-stamped coins. It appears that the counter-stamped sous migrated to the Louisiana Territory, and were used by Frenchmen who had settled there. The punched counter-stamps resulted in an unsightly flattening of the details on the opposite side of the coin. The counter-stamped sous came to be called "collots".
As a result of shortages caused by the War of 1812, it is widely believed that some of the sous, comparable in size to large cents, circulated as one cent pieces in eastern seaboard states.