Krone and øre
Krone and øre
Krone and øre coins from Oscar II
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As
the nineteenth century advanced, the idea of having international units
for coins, weights and measures gained a following. Being the least vulnerable
of the two classic coin metals when their relative values changed, gold
was increasingly being used as coin metal. An international coin convention
held in Paris in 1867 initiated discussions on the issue. The Latin Monetary
Union of 1865, with France and its franc currency as leading elements could
be considered forerunner of a common monetary system for "civilised" states.
However, the country's defeat in the French-German War of 1870-71 undermined
the prestige of France and the potential of the franc as a universal coin.
In Scandinavian consultations the German gold mark now became the leading candidate. In the end, the three Scandinavian monarchies nonetheless decided on their own joint solution. The Scandinavian Monetary Convention, signed in 1872, was based on using the krone as the unit in a monetary system based on gold and the decimal system, where one krone = 100 øre. While the convention was ratified in Denmark and Sweden in 1873, the Norwegian national assembly (Storting) turned it down. Norway therefore had an intermediate stage with the gold species-taler as the main monetary unit.
Two years later Norway joined the Scandinavian Monetary Convention; it was effective from 16 October 1875, introducing krone and øre in Norway too. From 1 January 1877, all calculations and accounting were to be carried out in the modern coinage.
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