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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;svessien, post: 4210780, member: 15481&quot;]Here is a sad looking coin that tells an equally sad story:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1079235[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>This coin was struck under Frederik IV of Denmark and Norway, at the mint in Kongsberg, Norway. The master of the Kongsberg mint at that time was Henrik Christoffer Meyer, son of former mint master Henning Christoffer Meyer (1655-1723). Henrik took over his fathers job in 1719. His initials, HCM, are barely visible under &quot;1727&quot; on the reverse. (12 skilling 1718 added as a more readable example here:</p><p>[ATTACH]1079246[/ATTACH] )</p><p>In 1727, Meyer was late delivering the books from the mintage that year. Suspicions were raised, and as they started to look into the coinage, they were proven right: The small coinage of that year had a too high component of copper. The mint master had been fiddling with the purity of the coins, and although he tried to put the blame on counterfeiters someplace else but the mint, it didn&#039;t hold. The dies from Kongsberg were paired with the coins, and proved that this was the work of the Kongsberg mint. Meyer may have stolen as much as 40 000 daler (thaler/dollar) from the king.</p><p>Frederik IV was furious. Meyer got the harshest possible punishment: He was stripped of honour, life and property. The king later regretted the death sentence, and granted Meyer his life, but he was to be whipped, branded with glowing iron and spend the rest of his life in slavery at Akershus fortress. After two years of imprisonment, Meyer died of the harsh prison conditions. He was 40 years old.</p><p><br /></p><p>The coinage from Kongsberg in 1728 does not have the H C M mintmark, only a single C, for &quot;Comission&quot;. What it lacks in letters, it makes up for in weight. The 1727 8 skilling weighs 3.20 grams, while the 1728 issue weighs the correct 3.67 grams.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1079269[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1729, Nicolai Bernhard Fuchs took over at the Kongsberg mint, and the new signature N B F appeared on the coins. Things were back to normal.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1079276[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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