1 Skilling Dansk - Frederik VI

Denmark's finances were in ruins by 1812. The Napoleonic Wars had severed British trade routes, the state had declared bankruptcy in 1813 — one year after this coin was struck — and copper small change was being issued against a backdrop of collapsing confidence in Danish paper currency. These copper skillings circulated heavily out of pure necessity, which makes clean survivors harder to find than mintage figures alone would suggest.