I rediscovered this photo on my return to Moscow. It was taken at the State Historical Museum in 1999, where I and other students from our department of Medieval and Early Modern History went for an extra-uni seminar in Numismatics. Among all the coins we could see and even touch was this Swedish coin. It was supposed to be made of silver, but due to the shortage of this precious metal most of it was coined from copper.
It is not dissimilar to the plate money you see on the photo on the right (courtesy of MetalDetectingWorld), and it weighed the enormous 9 kilos. Despite my smiling bravely and gleefully, I had to pull all my arms’ strength to hold the coin for a few moments when the picture was taken. Since then, I must admit, I carried and held much heavier weights.
This makes me think… just how much we can actually carry if we care to pull ourselves together. Surprisingly or not, there are not many photos of me where I’d be smiling like that.
