 Foundation of the Societies of Merchants to Both Indies, 1664. B.40. Obverse signed I. MAVGER. F. Bronze. 40.9 mm. Rims 3.1 - 3.8 mm. 581.2 gns. Plain edge, collared, no witness line. Obverse: Bust of Louis XIV, curl free of L. Reverse: Symbols of trade. About Uncirculated. Obverse rim crumbling at top. From the same reverse die as the next two. The forerunner to John Law's Compagnie des Indes, the Society was founded under Colbert's regime as a counterpoise to England's merchant adventurer companies and was essentially an arm of the state. French settlements in Pondicherry (1674) soon followed, ushering in decades of French-British competition for the Indian trade.
Ex Henry Christensen's sale of September 20, 1967, lot 159.
The name Jean Mauger appears on a seemingly endless array of Betts medals. Born about 1648, he became a prolific court medalist, executing about 260 medals in a mere seven years at his peak. He left 400 puncheons by his hand at the Paris Mint. He died sometime after 1707. His work occupies eight pages in Leonard Forrer's Biographical Dictionary of Medalists.
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