Money for No Money

June 11, 2014

 

My last visit to Stockholm was ridiculously expensive and included a $75 hamburger. It seems less so now. In fact, as I was walking around the town I noticed that the Royal Coin Cabinet, aka the National Museum of Economy, was offering free admission. 

The Yap stone

This is a museum that would not have been high on my list of things to see, but it turned out to be quite interesting. I got to see both the world’s heaviest money (the Yap stone) and the world’s largest copper coin, which was minted in 1644 and weighs 19.7 kg (~43 lbs). 

The world's largest copper coin

I learned that any hoarded money that is found on Swedish land automatically becomes the property of the state. 1478 was the first time that the year was put on the coin. 

Importantly, I learned the history of the term “dollar.” How many of you know where this comes from? In 1520 the Kingdom of Bohemia began minting silver coins from an area called “Joachimstal,” (or Joachim’s Valley). The coins were called Joachimsthaler, later shortened to “thaler.” The Dutch used a similar word to describe a coin they minted to use in international trade called the leeuwendaler, or lion dollar. The “daler” sounds like dollar. This coin was used in New Amsterdam (the NY colony).  In the mid 18^th century Spanish pesos were minted from South American silver. The “p” and “S” for pesos, Spanish were eventually crossed, which lead to the dollar sign $. In early America the United States dollar was defined as the precise amount of silver found in Spanish coins, or 24.07 grams. 

Lastly, I got to see hundreds of millions of German marks that were virtually worthless by the beginning of World War II.