The Royal Coin Cabinet

Kungliga Myntkabinettet

Address: Slottsbacken 6 – Opposite the Royal Palace
Phone: 08-5195 5304
Opening hours, admission, etc: www.myntkabinettet.se
Busses: 43, 55, 71, 76 to bus stop “Slottsbacken”
Subway station: Gamla Stan or Kungsträdgården and a 10 minute walk

Nowadays you need money to survive, but it hasn’t always been that way. There was a time when people traded something that they owned for something that they needed, but couldn’t catch, hunt, grow, or make themselves. The Royal Coin Cabinet is a museum that explains how bartering was replaced by money and how our modern economy works for us today.

The largest embossed coin in the world was minted in Sweden in 1644, weighs almost 20 kg and isn’t even round! At the time it was made, it was valued at ten daler—as the old Swedish currency was called. You’ll find this enormous, rectangular copper coin at the Royal Coin Cabinet. You’ll also find rare old coins and shiny new ones from all over the world at this museum. The first floor is mostly for collectors but upstairs there are some fun displays about money and work, savings and investment, poverty and wealth, and how money can be anything from a token to a credit card (as long as somebody is willing to accept it as payment). One display shows that the same small Swedish coin (50 öre) that bought an entire bowlful of candy thirty years ago now buys just a few puny pieces. There are also lots of other smart displays at Myntkabinettet. For me, they made even difficult economic concepts like inflation and devaluation understandable.