FREDERIKSSUND (MØNTKLUBBEN):

The provincial municipality (kommune) of Frederikssund stands on the shores of Roskilde Fjord in Frederiksborg County, in the northern part of the island of Zealand in eastern Denmark. The site of its municipal council is the town of Frederikssund , a typically Danish market town with a flourishing commercial and cultural scene. The Møntklubben (Coin Club) of Frederikssund was founded on October 22, 1976 by a group of Frederikssund citizens. According to their official Web-site (http://www.moenten-frederikssund.dk/), the club holds evening meetings twice a month in the winter season. It publishes a “coin-leaf” containing information about the club’s activities, lectures, and additional numismatic information. They also hold auctions of its members’ coins as a “communication-sale”. The Møntklubben has produced 10 medallic pieces in silver and bronze from 1976 to 1986 (with the exception of ‘85). “The medals are copied after the Kiknesfundet, and statues in Frederikssund as well as the club's emblem.” According to a fellow coin-collector from Denmark , Mr. Stig Erenbjerg, “Kiknes is an area, a small town. Fundet means ‘the finding’. So it is the finding in Kiknes. Someone has found coins in Kiknes and there after it has been called the ‘Kiknes-finding’.” This applies specifically to the pieces from 1979-83, and based on the brief text which accompanies their images, each design is a “Copy of a Bractate from the Kignæs find”. Mr. Chaim Dov Shiboleth clarifies the “Kiknes-finding” matter a bit further: “Bractates (brachate, bracteaat, bracteate) are Nordic coin/amulets from the early middle ages (minted in Northern Europe, including Friesland and Denmark ), which would make sense, as the obverses really look Nordic.” Moreover, he reminded me that “An archeological site is usually called a FIND”. I acquired the Møntklubben’s uniface 1977 copper token, which features a Viking ship, from Mr. Shiboleth in a trade for one of my 2007 Zilchstadt medallions. “I'm not sure if they even should be considered coins, I don't know if they were ever used in any way, but artistically they're interesting and remind me of some of the Christiania coins”. Only the pieces from ‘76 and ‘77 are uniface, “the others all have the 1976 obverse (including the 1976 date) as their reverse”. From the Møntklubben’s Mr. Villy Christensen , I later obtained the coins dated 1979, 1982, 1983, 1986. The latter piece features the “Ravne” (Ravens) — this pair of sculptures, each bird nearly 5 meters tall, stands outside the J.F. Willumsen Museum in Frederikssund. I asked Mr. Christensen why the Coin Club ceased producing coins: “The club stop making coins because it was not possible to sell that many of them, and it was difficult to get some new motives [motifs].”