Coin production underlays, lead
With bracteate coinage – a method of making pennings – a soft base of lead or leather was placed under the silver plate on which the coin was struck. We sometimes find residual products from such manufacture.
Minting waste in the form of lead bases from a mint in Örebro, Närke, shows that the mint had the job of striking pennings of both Svealand and Götaland weights for kings and brothers Valdemar Birgersson and Magnus Ladulås in the second half of the 13th century. The Örebro mint is mentioned in the will of Magnus Ladulås in 1285.
The minting bases were found during archaeological excavations of the Bromsgården district in 1978.
