Issue 1 - Mint Error News Magazine

The Story
Behind An
Interesting
Overstrike Coin
by Martin Wettmark
The coin that illustrates this story is a
1951 Norwegian 1 Kronor struck on a 1946
Swedish 1 Kronor. Is this a “true error” or
what is it?
In 1951 a group of Numismatists were
invited to the Royal Norwegian Mint in
Kongsberg. This was a formal visit arranged
by Skanes Numimatiska Förening, a Swedish
coin club located in the south of Sweden. As a
friendly gesture to the visitors, the Mint placed
some Swedish 1 Kronor coins in the Norwegian
coin press and struck some 1 Kronor
coins. Each person who wanted one of these
was given one. Therefore, it may be wrong to
describe the coin as a true error. To this day
approximately 10 coins are known that were
struck deliberately in this way. A few of these
coins have been offered on the market and
have been purchased by collectors.
40 years later I made a visit to the same
Mint with a group of collectors from Gothenburg
Numismatic Society. At that time I
was not aware of the deliberate overstriking
that had occured 40 years earlier. A few of
the group-members noticed some unstruck
planchets that were lying on the floor. The
staff was alarmed at this discovery and even
if I had known about the overstriking that took
place in 1951, it probably would not have been
a good idea to make a similar proposal...
In the picture above you can see that
the Swedish legend surrounds the Norwegian
King Hakon VII’s symbol. Under the symbol
you can see the head of the Swedish King Gustav
V, who had passed away in 1951.
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