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50 Øre 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-printed voucher in black on light brown paper. A light blue floral underprint appears behind the denomination numeral at left. Text is arranged in multiple registers across the face, with the issuer name and denomination in larger type. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Plain unprinted reverse in light blue-white paper, showing bleed-through of the obverse letterpress impression visible through the thin stock. |
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| Comments |
Bjørnøen A.S. was a Norwegian mining and fishing company that held a concession on Bear Island — Bjørnøya — in the Svalbard archipelago, and issued its own scrip for use by workers at the remote Arctic settlement. These notes functioned as a closed-currency system: wages paid in company scrip, redeemable only at the company store, with no practical alternative for men hundreds of miles from the Norwegian mainland.
The 1920 Svalbard Treaty had only recently settled the island's disputed sovereignty under Norway, and the company issued this scrip during a period when Bear Island's commercial future still looked viable. It didn't last — the operation wound down within a few years, leaving these notes as curiosities of an Arctic enterprise that never quite paid off.