10 Speciedalere

Norges Bank's earliest decades were marked by chronic distrust of paper money — understandable, given that the bank was founded in 1816 in the immediate aftermath of Norway's separation from Denmark and the financial wreckage that followed the Napoleonic period. The speciedaler itself was a relatively new unit, replacing the rigsdaler as Norway's standard, and large-denomination notes like this 10 Speciedalere were instruments of commercial settlement rather than everyday exchange.

Grosch was primarily an architect — he designed the Exchange building in Christiania and much of early nineteenth-century Norwegian civic infrastructure. His involvement in banknote engraving reflects how small the available pool of skilled craftsmen was in Norway at the time.