50 Öre - Gustaf V

Sweden's shift to .400 billon for this denomination came directly out of wartime metal pressures — the same conservation logic that pushed most European mints toward debased alloys or outright substitutions between 1940 and 1945. Sweden was neutral, but neutrality didn't insulate it from the global silver market. The alloy was retained through 1950 rather than restored to a higher fineness, reflecting postwar fiscal caution rather than any renewed shortage.

KM#817 spans Gustaf V's final years; he died in October 1950 at age 92, the longest-reigning Swedish monarch to that point.