16 Skilling Sweden

The 16 skilling coin was often struck on planchets recycled from melted Spanish reales, a pragmatic reuse of captured booty during Sweden's endless wars.

That practice highlights the era's silver shortages, which forced mints to improvise. Weighing around 7 to 10 grams depending on the year, it circulated as a workhorse for trade in a kingdom stretching from Lapland to the Baltic. Designs varied; early issues showed Charles XII's stern profile, later ones King Gustav III's more refined features.

We don't know the exact mintage for most years—records burned in the 1838 Stockholm fire, as usual. If you're chasing one, look for the 1718 variety; it's rarer than its counterparts and shows the wear of history.

Plenty of myths claim these coins funded Viking revivals, but that's nonsense. They just paid for bread and bullets.