DENMARK, 1/2 rigsbankskilling, 1838

DescriptionIn the early 19th century Denmark, like most of Europe, was fiscally messed up because of the Napoleanic wars. Since coins were still supposed to be worth something some thought had to be given to what the populace would put up with. But everyone was so tired! This coin was made while the country was trying to drag itself toward stability.Denmark did not start making coins until the 9th century AD. Probably they picked up the idea during their invasions of England. It was a power player in medieval times but gradually lost place to Sweden and Germany as population pressure began to be a factor in European politics.The political arrangements that resulted in the nations of modern Europe began to emerge out of anarchy starting in the 7th century AD or so. Europe, for our purposes stretches from Greenland to somewhere in Russia. Collectors of Europe would likely include Russia. Collectors of Asia, even though about 2/3 of Russia is in Asia, probably not.By “Modern World Coins” we mean here, generally, the round, flat, shiny metal objects that people have used for money and still do. “Modern,” though, varies by location. There was some other way they were doing their economies, and then they switched over to “modern coins,” then they went toward paper money, now we’re all going toward digital, a future in which kids look at a coin and say “What’s that?” We’ll say: “We used to use those to buy things.” Kids will ask “How?” The main catalog reference is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, to which the KM numbers refer.