THE BRITISH NUMISMATIST
Our regular round-up of the academic side of the hobby, including an insight into how the world of numismatics has met the challenges of 2020, a guide to coins of the Gallic Empire, and an introduction to Swedish plate money
Dr Richard Kelleher, of the Department of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, looks at an extraordinary example of real coined money which grew to a remarkable size and prompted the printing of Europe’s first paper money
Most modern money comes in one of a few familiar physical forms. Circular base metal coins made of alloys of nickel, copper, brass and steel – depending on denomination and desired finish – are one common form. Another are banknotes made of paper or, increasingly over the past decade, polymer. Although metal coinages have been a consistent monetary form over time, they have occasionally veered off in quite unexpected directions.
If you asked what the world’s largest coin is, the Guinness Book of World Records would tell you it’s the Australian Kangaroo gold coin weighing an astonishing one tonne. This coin, however, is more of a novelty showpiece than functioning money.
Sweden was Europe’s foremost copper producer, thanks to the productive mine at Falun where seams of copper have been exploited for a thousand years, and other sites at Gustavsberg, Carlsberg and Ljusnedal. Falun, situated in Svealand (middle Sweden), is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site but in the early modern period was the major source of Sweden’s state wealth. The Privy Council of Sweden referred to the mine as the nation’s treasury and stronghold, and the profits derived from copper exports helped propel Sweden to become a major imperial power in the Baltic and beyond. As early as the 1620s the shortage of silver coins was recognised as being a serious impediment to trade. One solution, which would have other beneficial effects, was to mint an extensive copper coinage. Not only would this ease the limited circulating medium, it would also restrict and control the copper supply. Restricting the level of copper exports allowed the crown to monopolise its supply, and thus its price on the international metal exchange in Amsterdam.
After some initial success complications arose. Fluctuations in the exchange rate between copper and silver meant that the copper daler was not equivalent to its silver namesake. Attempts were made to foist the excess copper coins on conquered territories in Prussia and Pomerania. The negotiations with Stralsund, who the Swede’s supported against imperial forces, included a condition that obligated the citizens to accept the copper coins. Another solution, recommended in 1644, was to mint kopparplätmynt, large copper plate money valued in silver dalers.
The piece illustrated here is one of the examples in the Fitzwilliam Museum collection. They come in a variety of denominations from ½ daler up to the 10 daler plate measuring 300 x 700mm and weighing almost 20kg! The form of each
is the same regardless of size. The plates are uniface and were struck with dies in the centre and each of the four corners. The central die gives us the value 1 DALER SILF MYNT. The other four stamps tell us the authority and the date of minting, (A·F·R·S = ADOLPHUS FRIDERICUS REX SVECIAE) Adolf Fredrik King of Sweden, and 1753.
Despite their unwieldy size the Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna and industrialist Louis De Geer argued that copper plate money was suitable for international trade because it could be ‘used both as money and as merchandise’. Another larger piece of plate money in the Museum collection was recovered from the wreck of the Nicobar in 1987. The ship went down in a July storm in 1783 off the coast of False Bay (Valsbaai), South Africa, and shows that copper plates were indeed a tradeable commodity.
In practice it was the bank that found a solution to the oversized money. Institutions and the general public could deposit their plates in the bank in exchange for a receipt, which could then be used in transactions with other parties, foregrounding the introduction of paper bank notes by the Stockholm Banco in 1661. In the bank charter, Karl X Gustav emphasised ‘the good convenience our subjects thereby obtain, that in this way they are rid of much subtraction and addition, hauling and dragging and other trouble that the copper coin entails in its handling’. Paper did not entirely replace the plate money, which continued to be struck up until 1776.