There are no Luxembourg coining dies known from the Middle Ages. The dies shown here date back to crowns struck during the siege of Luxembourg. They are of great historical interest, particularly as they are the only ones preserved in Luxembourg. The oldest extant coining tools, kept at the Brussels mint, date from 1700.

The blockade of the fortress of Luxembourg by French revolutionary troops under General Moreau began on 21 November 1794. The siege caused shortages in a number of areas, and soon there was not enough money available to pay the Austrian garrison. Starting on 4 February 1795, Field Marshal Baron de Bender solved the problem by having a silver siege coin struck from superfluous metal obtained from the arsenal and from melted-down civilian and ecclesiastical silverware. Nevertheless, famine threatened, and he was forced to hand over the fortress to the enemy.

The coins, like the dies used to make them, are rather coarse, and their weight varies between 27 and 32 g. They were worth 72 asses (1 as = sol), in 13 lot (812.5/1000) pure silver. Many of them have marks where they were adjusted to reduce them to the desired weight. These emergency coins continued to circulate under French occupation. This temporary coining was done with a coining press. It was the first time coins were struck since the closing of the mint in 1644. After 1856, all of the Grand Dukes’ coins were minted outside Luxembourg.