Piedfort

Piedforts are not normally circulated, and are only struck for presentation purposes by mint officials (such as patterns), or for collectors, dignitaries and other VIPs.

[6] 18th century encyclopedic French dictionaries record it in the form of two separate words, as "pied fort" (1774): PIED FORT, terms of currency, this word is said of a coin of gold, silver, or other metal, that is thicker than ordinary currency...[17]The modern form of "piedfort" appears in English by 1802 in a Sotheby's auction catalog,[18] by which time the term was already in wide use.

Impropriety of the piefort misspelling is attested to 1917, when the error had become common enough to warrant a mention in an early numismatic jargon dictionary: Piefort, or more properly, Piedfort, means literally any coin struck on an unusually thick planchet as a trial piece or essay.

[19]The piefort misspelling appears in English as early as 1893, where the author and citing authors give false etymologies of the word relating to the weight (not thickness) of a coin, the depiction of human legs on a coin, and a corruption of the name of the Belgian city of Liège ("Luik" in Dutch) as "Leg".

[20] The influential Krause and Mishler Standard Catalog of World Coins has used both piedfort and piefort interchangeably for at least the prior 3 decades, as of 2012.