THE COIN COLLECTOR - World eBook Library

THE COLLECTOR SERIES
the hypothesis that they might have been struck there.
But the Danish and Swedish mints soon learned to
emulate the best productions of other countries ; and
the very reasons which have caused the currencies of
these two realms to descend to us as a broken and
irregular record constitute in our eyes an additional
attraction, as they were the means of calling into
existence an unusual lv large body of money of neces-
sity, and of pieces issued by usurpers or competitors
for the throne. Of late years the attention of col-
lectors has been drawn in a greatly increased measure
to the Scandinavian provinces on two grounds : the
curiosity of the more ancient monuments and their
connection with England, and the fine workmanship
and historical interest of those belonging to more
recent times. Sweden associates with itself the names
of Gustavus Adolphus, his daughter Christina, the
great minister Oxenstierna, Charles XII., as well as
the singular phenomenon offered in the ponderous
copper plate-money of the eighteenth century, and the
series of very rare early gold money.
In entering the Low Countries we soon become sen-
sible that we arc on ground which has been trodden by
a remarkable succession of rulers, and which, looking
at their comparatively limited area, exhibit a residual
assemblage of currencies belonging to dynasts, fiefs,
towns, and provinces, of which nearly all have passed
into the domain of history, of which many are obscure,
and of which a few have left only numismatic vouchers
for their existence. Throughout Belgium and Holland
136