Danish Rigsdaler - History

History

The Danish currency system established in 1625 consisted of 12 penning = 1 skilling, 16 skilling = 1 mark, 6 mark = 1 rigsdaler and 8 mark = 1 krone. From 1713, two separate systems coexisted, courant and species, with courant being a debased currency also used for banknote issue. The rigsdaler species contained 4⁄37 of a Cologne mark of fine silver (i.e., 9¼ rigsdaler species equalled one Cologne mark).

In 1813, following a financial crisis, a new currency system was introduced, based on the rigsbankdaler. This was divided into 96 rigsbank skilling and was equal to half a rigsdaler species or 6 rigsdaler courant.

A further change was made in 1854. The rigsdaler species name disappeared and the names rigsbankdaler and rigsbank skilling became rigsdaler and skilling rigsmønt. Thus, there were 96 skilling rigsmønt to the rigsdaler.

In 1873, Denmark and Sweden formed the Scandinavian Monetary Union and the rigsdaler was replaced by the Danish krone. An equal valued krone/krona of the monetary union replaced the three currencies at the rate of 1 krone/krona = ½ Danish rigsdaler = ¼ Norwegian speciedaler = 1 Swedish riksdaler. Today, a tokrone (coin worth 2 kroner) is thus occasionally referred to as a daler.

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