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Message:: [QUOTE="Spargrodan, post: 5390378, member: 109905"]Correct, the lack of silver is the reason the "plåtmynt" as we call them in Sweden was so freakishly big. They had to contain the nominal weight in copper for what the stamps where indicating. Not only were they impractical for being big and heavy but with a fluctuating copper prize the copper content was worth more at times than the nominal values of the stamps. It's known that people spitted coins in half or chipped of the corners to get smaller change. Around 1660 an inventive swede re-discovered the paper money (China had already long before). You could now simply hand over a receipt for the copper coin while it stayed in the vault of the banks. About 16'000 plåtmynt is known to have been minted. 5'000 of those sunk as [USER=12789]@scottishmoney[/USER] wrote with Nicobar but around 3'000 could later be retrieved when the shipwreck was found. In Sweden it's not that hard to get your hands on a plåtmynt but they are quite expensive to acquire. A bit of topic but to get back, in Scandinavia the Middle Ages ended around 100 years later compared to the rest of Europe with the end of the Kalmar Union at 1523.[/QUOTE]