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1 Krone Bear Island
| Issuer | Bjørnøen A.S. |
|---|---|
| Year | 1923-1924 |
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| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Krone (1875-date) |
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| Obverse description | Letterpress text in black on light brown paper, with a light green floral underprint to the left of the denomination. The face carries the full Norwegian-language terms of exchange in several lines, with the issuer name and the value EN KRONE set in larger type. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Unprinted verso on plain paper; text from the obverse shows faintly through as bleed-through, with a light yellowish stain visible toward the right edge. |
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| Comments |
Bjørnøen A.S. was a Norwegian company that held a mining concession on Bear Island (Bjørnøya) in the High Arctic and issued this token currency for internal use at the isolated settlement — a closed-economy scrip, valid only within the company's own operation. The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 had formally placed the archipelago under Norwegian sovereignty, but Bear Island's practical isolation made a local medium of exchange a straightforward administrative solution rather than any assertion of monetary authority.
The 1923–1924 dating likely reflects the active mining period before the operation wound down. Surviving examples are scarce simply because the total population at the settlement at any given time was small.