10 Ducats (Gustav Vasa's Liberation War and political and religious freedom) – Sweden

Following the Great Northern War (1700-1721), Sweden's currency situation in 1721 was one of profound crisis and debasement. To finance the immense costs of the prolonged conflict, the state had resorted to repeated manipulations of the coinage. The government, notably under the influence of the mercantilist financier Baron Georg Heinrich von Görtz, dramatically reduced the silver content in coins while officially maintaining their face value. This created a flood of so-called "necessity coins" (nödmynt), which were essentially copper coins with a minimal silver wash, leading to a severe loss of public trust in the currency.

The result was a chaotic monetary system with a vast discrepancy between the intrinsic metal value and the nominal value of the coins in circulation. Prices soared as merchants and the public reacted to the devaluation, creating significant inflation and economic hardship. Furthermore, older, full-value silver coins were hoarded or exported, leaving the debased currency as the primary medium of exchange, a classic example of Gresham's Law where "bad money drives out good."

The war's end in 1721 with the Treaty of Nystad brought military defeat and the loss of Sweden's Baltic empire, but no immediate monetary relief. The state faced a colossal war debt and a broken currency. One of the first major tasks for the new Age of Liberty government was to address this financial wreckage, leading to a complex and lengthy process of currency stabilization that would culminate in the 1745 decree establishing the riksdaler as a stable silver-based currency, finally resolving the instability born from the war's desperate finances.