History, Politics And Current Affairs

Now and again there’s silver and gold hoards found in various places in Sweden, sometimes more notable than others. This summer some people wanting to go fishing dug for worms in the ground on the island of Mörkö south of Stockholm. What they found was a copper cauldron with a silver hoard including buckles, crucifixes but most strikingly 24,000 silver coins. 16,000 of which had been minted on the island of Gotland which is notable as relatively few such coins, about 80, have been found in the greater Stockholm area in the past.

The site lies along the southern maritime path into the Mälar valley area which has been a trading and power center since pre-historic times, even though the hoard predates the establishment of Stockholm. Based on the dating of the coins archeologists estimate that it was buried around the year 1200 but some items date back to around 900.

Given the large number of gotlandic coins archeologists also speculate that the site might have functioned as some sort of an exchange office.

In general I find it pretty exciting that we keep finding stuff like this just lying around here, it kind of triggers that childhood desire and hope to find hidden treasure.

Its particularly striking to me how thin the coins are. Nothing like today's bullion coins, or even the silver coins minted before 1964.

The technology for minting coins back then was fairly primitive, right? Basically a strong guy with a die and a hammer?

And holy crap, talk about lucky!!!!

Belushi TD

A quick look at Google shows coins like dimes and nickels weren't much different in weight than older coins. This isn't surprising considering their role as actual currency. More modern ounce coins, even the "trade unit" types, are more collectable and inflation hedge/savings than cash to spend.

added benefit of making them thin like that is its harder to chip off the edges without causing obvious change to it.

Kunkmiester wrote: ↑Wed Nov 12, 2025 4:45 pm A quick look at Google shows coins like dimes and nickels weren't much different in weight than older coins. This isn't surprising considering their role as actual currency. More modern ounce coins, even the "trade unit" types, are more collectable and inflation hedge/savings than cash to spend.

I get that, but they're still much thinner than even a silver dime intended for circulation is. I wonder what the purity difference is between back then and the modern silver coinage.

By modern I mean the stuff minted before 1964 in the US, not the collectible/bullion stuff they make now, which is, if I'm not mistaken, four 9's fine.

Belushi TD

Belushi TD wrote: ↑Thu Nov 13, 2025 1:08 pm

Kunkmiester wrote: ↑Wed Nov 12, 2025 4:45 pm A quick look at Google shows coins like dimes and nickels weren't much different in weight than older coins. This isn't surprising considering their role as actual currency. More modern ounce coins, even the "trade unit" types, are more collectable and inflation hedge/savings than cash to spend.

I get that, but they're still much thinner than even a silver dime intended for circulation is. I wonder what the purity difference is between back then and the modern silver coinage.

By modern I mean the stuff minted before 1964 in the US, not the collectible/bullion stuff they make now, which is, if I'm not mistaken, four 9's fine.

Belushi TD

Yeah some of the coins in the hoard are of the bracteate type:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracteate

They’re thin, only stamped from one side (the design is essentially seen mirrored on the other side) and thus easier to make than one stamped on both sides with differing designs.