A class of coins known as pieforts offers a different kind of collecting option for the world coin collector. These coins carry designs found on their lighter, thinner counterparts, but in thick versions. Pieforts, simply, are twice the coin. They have a long and dual history, and remain popular today. What are they? A piefort (French spelling: piedfort) is a coin that is struck “with ordinary dies on an unusually thick planchet. It is not intended for circulation and is therefore distinct from the dump, a thick coin struck for commercial use,” according to The Macmillan Encyclopedic Dictionary of Numismatics by Richard Doty.