Is this a crude copy, fake, or indeed some ugly coins circulated?
14mm
0.60g
I know there are some variants, but all looks better than that.
Thank you for any comment!
Geison
So, the history of this coin is very interesting. It was struck at the beginning of the 1660s, during and after the Deluge, a destructive invasion of Sweden on the Commonwealth. This left the country in financial ruin, which is why the government decided to mint copper schillings/szeląg instead of the usual silver ones. The designs were very crude and made with cheap metal, so they were easy to fake.
I think that your coin is a crude contemporary counterfeit, as
A) there is no reason to fake them nowadays. The mintage was about 1.8 billion (!), even more than most modern coins.
B) a lot of people faked these coins. It's estimated that about 10% of circulating coins at the time were fake, equaling to almost 200 million fakes!
You're welcome! These coins are very interesting and contemporary counterfeits are sometimes even more expensive (and definitely rarer) than original coins.
