Sale: CNG 64, Lot: 1670. Estimate $7500.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 24 September 2003.  Sold For $7600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-GALLIC. Edward III. 1327-1377. AV Léopard d'Or (3.99 gm). Aquitaine mint. Second issue, July 1356. +EDWARDVS: DEI: GRA: AnGLIE: FRANCIE: REX, crowned leopard passant standing left within tressure of nine arches; large crown, voided quatrefoil stops / +XPC: VInCIT: XPC: REGNAT: XPC: IMPERAT, floriated cross; leopards in angles, all within tressure. Elias 38b. Good VF. Very rare. ($7500)

The first definitive gold coin of the English territories in Aquitaine was the leopard d'or, first struck in September 1355 in response to the French mouton d'or that had appeared a few months earlier. The English copied the general type, replacing the paschal lamb with the leopard of Aquitaine. The second issue, of slightly smaller module, appeared in July 1356, as Edward the Black Prince gathered his forces in Normandy for the campaign that would end in the capture of John II of France at Poitiers that September. Third and fourth issues of leopards were struck in the period 1357-1361, but the entire series was probably recalled in 1361, when Edward renounced his title of King of France in exchange for ratification of his possession of Aquitaine. John returned to France, but when he was unable to gather the 3 million ecus demanded as his ransom he voluntarily returned to captivity, where he died in London in 1364.