12 Skilling - Frederik V

The Danish West Indies maintained a chronic coinage shortage throughout the mid-eighteenth century, relying heavily on Spanish colonial pieces and improvised currency. Frederik V authorized this silver issue specifically to address the problem — the colony's plantation economy demanded small denominations that could actually circulate among laborers, overseers, and local merchants rather than disappearing into trade chests. Denmark's Caribbean holdings were always a fiscal peculiarity: profitable enough to maintain, never profitable enough to service properly.

KM#6 saw production across a span of nearly two decades, an unusually long run reflecting both low annual demand and the administrative distance between Copenhagen and St. Croix.