SWEDISH COPPER PLATE MONEY WITH ORIGINAL PAPER WRECK OF NICOBAR 1783

Description

SWEDISH COPPER PLATE MONEY WITH ORIGINAL PAPER WORK FROM WRECK OF NICOBAR 1783
THIS PLATE HAS MORE OF THE COINS STAMPED ON IT THAN MANY FOUND  ( BEST ONE I FOUND ON THE MARKET FROM THIS SHIP)
COINS ALL DATED 1750
THE COMPANY THAT SOLD THESE PLATES INCLUDED A DOCUMENT WITH THE STORY
I INCLUDED A PICTURE OF THIS DOCUMENT BUT ALSO HERE IS THE STORY :::::
(Swedish Copper Plate Money
This Swedish copper plate money (kopperplatmynt) is over 200 years old, and is from the 1783
shipwreck of the Nicobar. It is one of the world's most remarkable forms of currency.
Swedes and Danes used large copper plates as money between 1644 d 1776. Copper metal
was used because there was a severe shortage of silver in Sweden, while copper was plentiful.
The reason for such a large, cumbersome coin was that the amount of copper represented
its equivalent value in silver. It was rectangular because it was simpler and quicker to make than
round money.
People normally carried the heavy plate money over their shoulder using a rope sling. Each
copper plate usually had five circular stamps. (Some may bear fewer because of erosion.) In
1777 the copper currency gave way to silver coins because people no longer wanted to cope with
its size and weight.
The 47-metre Nicobar was a merchant vessel belonging to the Danish East Indian Company. Her
name had been derived from the Nicobar Islands, a group of 20 islands in the Indian Ocean
which were occupied by the Danes between 1756 and 1856.
In 1783 the Nicobar was outward bound when it was crippled by a terrible storm and ran into a
reef off the coast of South Africa. The ship's cargo (including coins dating back as far as 1664)
was being shipped from Copenhagen to Tranquebar, India, for their copper content, after plate
money had been demonetized.
The wreck of the Nicobar was discovered in January 1987 by two spear fishermen. It was an
extremely significant find, because it yielded approximately 3,000 of these unique copper plates.
Prior to the discovery, only about 11,000 plates were known to exist in museums, churches,
schools and private collections around the wold. If's estimated that 43 million pieces of plate money were produced between 1644 and 1776)
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