hey again gang! I also picked this guy up today at the coin show... it's Swedish plate money....looks like it would be a pain in the butt to carry around in your pocket... I guess they made these as a higher denom coin since silver and gold were in short supply. neat... I have never seen one of these before.

It is very likely a Nicobar piece. They are popular because they are practically the largest coins you can realistically collect that were issued as money and not as something aimed at collectors later on. These things were very very unpopular when they were issued because of their size, and the fact that the Swedish Government basically pushed them off on people.

They stopped making them in 1768, and they were demonetized shortly thereafter. After they were demonetized they were little more than scrap, and something like 90-95% of them like the example you have were being shipped in the holds of ships going to Asia as ballast, when they reached Asia the plate moneys were sold for scrap there. One such ship, the Nicobar, sank off of the coast of South Africa in 1787.

I have a couple of examples of plate money, a 1716 Daler, and a 1728 Two Daler on my website that are non sea salvage. They are quite difficult to find as such now. I have seen two 1676 2 Daler plate moneys that Alex Basok had and they were $2500 each.

Very cool and interesting. I will have to get myself one of those!