Norway's zinc coinage of this period was struck at Oslo under German occupation authority, which had shuttered the country's silver supply for wartime use. The cadmium trace in the alloy was a practical stabilizer against zinc pest — a crystalline corrosion that destroys the metal from within — a persistent problem with wartime zinc coinages across occupied Europe. Haakon VII himself was in exile in London, making these coins a peculiar artifact: nominally bearing the image of a king whose government had fled and whose return the occupiers were actively preventing.
Norway's zinc coinage of this period was struck at Oslo under German occupation authority, which had shuttered the country's silver supply for wartime use. The cadmium trace in the alloy was a practical stabilizer against zinc pest — a crystalline corrosion that destroys the metal from within — a persistent problem with wartime zinc coinages across occupied Europe. Haakon VII himself was in exile in London, making these coins a peculiar artifact: nominally bearing the image of a king whose government had fled and whose return the occupiers were actively preventing.