1/2 Speciedaler - Christian IV

Christian IV's speciedaler series for Norway emerged from his broader effort to rationalize Scandinavian coinage following the establishment of the Kongsberg silver mines in 1624 — one of the richest deposits in northern Europe and the direct economic justification for a sustained Norwegian silver coinage. Without Kongsberg, this series almost certainly doesn't exist.

The .882 fineness held across the eighteen-year run is notable; Danish monetary policy of the period frequently debased subsidiary silver, but the speciedaler fractions were kept honest, likely to maintain credibility in Baltic trade markets where merchants weighed and assayed rather than trusted.