The E-Sylum:  Volume 11, Number 5, February 3, 2008, Article 27

NORWEGIAN FIND IN ICELAND ILLUSTRATES 1840S COIN CIRCULATION

[This week a publication in Iceland mentioned a coin find
in that country.  -Editor]

An old coin was discovered between floor panels in a building
from 1840 in Djúpivogur, southeast Iceland, currently under
renovation. It has a picture of a lion hanging from an ax,
which is Norway’s coat of arms, and dates back to 1653.

“It was made in Kongsberg in Norway out of Norwegian silver,”
numismatist Anton Holt told Morgunbladid. “Every coin found
in Iceland is significant because we didn’t have any coins
ourselves.”

Until 1922, when the first Icelandic coin was made, coins
were imported to Iceland. According to Holt, every year an
old foreign coin is discovered in Iceland. Norwegian coins
are rarer than Danish coins; 80 percent of imported coins
were Danish, 15 percent Norwegian and five percent Swedish.

Holt said the fact that a coin from 1653 was discovered in
a house built in 1840 shows that it was common for Icelanders
to use 100 to 200-year-old coins on a daily basis before they
had their own money.

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  Wayne Homren, Editor

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