Hello all, I have the opportunity to buy the following Swedish Slate Money, but wanted to run it by you fine folks first. Here is what I'm looking at (and please forgive the shortcomings of my photography): 1742 Half Daler KM-PM65, 353g 103mm x 90mm Thank you in advance
1731 Four Daler KM-PM74, 2920g 224mm x 228mm (I did not take a photo of the edge of this coin but it is consistent with the others)
One thing you might check is the consistency of the stamped designs on the same plate. I see some differences.
Having owned exactly one piece of Swedish plate money ever (and that a sea-salvaged 1750 4-daler piece from the Nicobar shipwreck), I can say that I see no obvious red flags here as far as authenticity goes, but take my limited experience with a grain of salt. I shall defer to those with wider and/or more specialized experience on these. Seems to me that if the Chinese or somebody wanted to fake these, they could, pretty easily, but that being said, I think they're esoteric enough that perhaps not many people have bothered. I would imagine that counterfeits on these are not a huge problem, though I could of course be wrong. These are, of course, extremely cool monster "coins" in a similar theme to Yap stone money, though of course more metallic and affordable. PS- For what it is worth, here is a "Swedish Coppers" page I Googled up when I was remembering the name of that shipwreck.
Great collection of Swedish platemoney , would look cool in a display on the wall of your office, Mike.
I think they're esoteric enough that people like me, a lifelong world coin collector, have never even heard of them! Google search, here I come.
I collect them myself and have up to the 4 daler piece, which of course was the most dear. I really would like to get the larger 17th century pieces, particularly the 10 daler but probably never will as the prices go up exponentially for them. I have only seen a couple of 4 daler from the 17th century for sale from a Russian dealer. I did see several of the 18th century examples in Stockholm years ago. I see nothing with these that suggests they are anything less than what they are purported to be. One of mine is a bit unusual in that it was made late in the reign of Karl(Charles)XII(1697-1718) because later on in the reign the government began issuing the token coinages with inflated values that drove all silver and plate money out of circulation for a time.
I should add that I really like the uneven sort of "contoured" effect on the back of the 2- and 4-daler pieces shown here. Those look great. I believe one grades them by the stamps (which seems rather obvious, I guess). I particularly like the overall look and stamps on the 1722 2-daler piece. If you were going to get a little easel and have one of those on a shelf in your library, that is the one I would choose from an aesthetic perspective. It has a nice symmetry to it in addition to the other positive attributes I mentioned.
