50 Øre - Haakon VII Type 1

Norway's switch to .600 fine silver for this series — down from the .400 used in the preceding copper-nickel issues — was driven less by monetary policy than by the political upheaval of 1905, when the union with Sweden dissolved and the newly independent Norwegian state was keen to establish coinage befitting a sovereign kingdom. Haakon VII, a Danish prince who had never set foot in Norway before his election, needed currency that projected stability.

Production ran through the First World War, when silver procurement became genuinely difficult across Scandinavian mints. Later dates in the series are correspondingly harder to find in uncirculated condition.