SWEDISH 'PLATE MONEY'

SWEDISH 'PLATE MONEY'
A scarce and desirable eighteenth-century Swedish relic, a 7 x 6 in. piece of copper or bronze 'plate money', struck with three Swedish 'daler'. Typically square in shape and bearing five strikes, this example is chipped towards the edges, removing two coins towards the corners. The left-most strike missing its left side, else fine. Directly from the estate of Prof. R. WAYNE SNIDER (1928 - 2020), a founder of Grace Theological Seminary and a Professor of History for over fifty years at Grace College in Indiana. The plate money was issued as a replacement for silver and gold coinage from 1644 to 1776, as these metals were scarce in Sweden and its colonial possessions, while copper was readily available in massive quantities. Many known examples of Swedish plate money, likely including this piece, were recovered from the wreck of the Nicobar, a Dutch East India Co. ship that struck a reef near South Africa and sank on July 11, 1783.