An elegant coin from Scandinavia

Norway

(Map of Northern Europe showing Norway. From Wikipedia).

Norway is a long, thin country, the northernmost in Scandinavia. It has a long southern land border with Sweden, then Finland and a short border with Russia, near Murmansk.

The last ice age ended in the country around 14,000 years ago, people started migrating to Norway. The coastline offered good conditions for sealing, fishing and hunting. The first traces of farming and the start of the Neolithic period began about 4000 BC around the Oslofjord.

Social structures such as clans evolved during the Nordic Iron Age (55 BC – 800 AD). During this time, Norwegians were trading with the Roman Empire, and developed their own alphabet: runes.

The Viking Age is generally considered to have lasted from 793 – 1066 AD. The Vikings were great shipbuilders and navigators. They spread all over Europe and Viking Leif Eriksson reached America 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

In the 14th century, Norway formed a union with Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway. This benefited the economy, and the population increased, but the loss of independence was not popular in Norway. Following the Napoleonic wars, Norway was handed to Sweden, however a new constitution was adopted which split power between the king and the parliament of Norway. The union with Sweden continued until 1905.

Scandinavia

Norway is part of the region known as “Scandinavia”. It’s easy to slip into discussion of the country, but I wanted to find you a good definition of it. This, from NordicVisitor.com is concise: Scandinavia refers to a region of Northern Europe where the countries are closely linked by history, culture, and language. Most commonly, Scandinavia refers to Norway, Denmark and Sweden, though it can also include Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

Although bordering both Sweden and Norway, the reason Finland isn’t strictly considered part of Scandinavia comes back to the history, culture and language aspects. “Linguistically, Finland falls into a peculiar category: the country’s majority official language is unrelated to Scandinavian, and even Indo-European, languages. Culturally, Finland can certainly be considered Scandinavian. Similarly, Iceland is close and often grouped in was part of Scandinavia.

Obverse

Like many other Scandinavian coins, this Norwegian coin features the King’s cypher. From that post: “Monograms have letters which form part of each other, where Cyphers (or ciphers) have letters which could be separated”.

In this case, the cypher surrounds a shield, the Norwegian coat of arms. Numista describes this as: “Crowned rectangular shield with a crowned Norwegian lion holding a halberd and facing left with vertical lines in the background, inside the shield.”

The Norwegian Royal Coat of Arms originated in the 13th century with just a golden lion on a red shield. The silver axe was added late in the century to symbolise St Olaf (King Olaf II), said to be the ‘Eternal King of Norway’. The design represents the Sverre dynasty but was quartered with the coat of arms of the Bjälbo (or Bjelbo) which was connected to the Folkung dynasty in Sweden. The Sverre dynasty became extinct in 1319, but the Sverre coat of arms have lived on to represent Norway.

Reverse

The reverse contains: “Value in two lines, surrounded by wreath. Date divided by mintmark below the wreath. Solid ring on the rim.”

The mintmark, crossed hammer and pick, have been symbols of the Royal Norwegian Mint in Kongsberg for at least three centuries. Until 1695, some Norwegian coins were minted in Christiania, Denmark, so the mintmark helped distinguish coins produced in Norway. Since 1695, all Norwegian coins have been produced in Kongsberg.