STRANGE MONEY

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 September 1940, Page 4

STRANGE MONEY

COPPER AND PLAYING CARDS. During the fighting about Narvik the branch office in the town of the Swedish mining company, Luossa-vaara-Kiirunavaara A. 8., and a local savings bank had to issue special emergency currency. ' This happening has given rise to a survey of the great variety, of emergency currency and payment mediums that at different times of crisis have been issued in Sweden. Most >of these, according to the Swedish'' International Press Bureau, are attributable to ancient industrial enterprises whose generally isolated situation, and their patriarchial organisation which made them responsible for the necessities' of their workers and dependants, compelled them to issue some sort of medium of exchange that was recognised in trade. Many of these coins and the like are now collected in the Stockholm Technical Museum, where they had recently been arranged in a special exhibit. Famed among numismatists are the world’s biggest coins, big copper slabs weighing 20 kilos (about 501 b), and measuring about 70 x 30cm., which the Swedish State issued in the middle of the seventeenth century. They were stamped with their silver value of 10 Daler, which corresponds to 500 to 600 kronor in present Swedish currency (£35).

In a pase containing curiosities in this line is seen a rare collection of counters, used locally in trade. Counters were made from all kinds of materials, ranging from wood with sealing vzax impressions, embossed birch bark, and leather, coin-like counters of copper, brass, lead, and tinned plate to paper. On certain of these curiously-shaped counters was stated what one could obtain for them. At one famous old Swedish works they used halved playing cards, for which the bearer could claim 18 sacks of- charcoal. Another works had wooden counters entitling to a gallon of whisky; for yet others one could obtain ale, milk, coal, wood, or a day’s male or female labour. These vouchers for service performed had validity throughout large sections of the country. COMPETED WITH MINT. The scarcity of coins of the realm was keenly felt during long periods in the Sweden of bygone days. It is good testimony to the integrity of the issuers of these counters and coins, as it must be concluded that the works issuing the counters sometimes resorted to this expedient because they were short of money, and thus indirectly relied upon the credit of farmers, tradesmen and dealers for the support of their workers. - Sweden’s ancient and famous copper mining company, the Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags A. 8., issued coins which competed very seriously with and enjoyed the same confidence as the currency of the realm all over Sweden. The competition also led to conflicts with the Government. Often, too, the copper bits had no value indicated, which saved the company from infringement on the rights of the Mint. The inscriptions! on such coins or counters issued in 1722 and 1723 give a bit bf economic history from these days. The first shows a section of a mine shaft where no work is going on, and round this

the sentence “God gives ore but the supply of coal is running short.” The next year things would seem to have improved and the counter shows a barrel of ore half-way up the shaft and the words “God blesses the depths of the earth.” A very recent example, is afforded

by the notes or vouchersissued by the Swedish Sp’itzbergen Coal Mining Company only some 20 years ago in lieu of real money. These notes are very difficult to come across nowadays, the possessors having evidently in most cases neglected to follow the injunction on the notes

that “unredeemed notes shall upon departure from Spitzbergen, and not later than at the end of the working season, be handed over to the Mine Office, which will pay the face amount in Swedish currency,” and have preferred to retain the notes as a keepsake.