Seventeenth-century Sweden established a national currency backed almost entirely by copper, which forced citizens to conduct basic daily business using incredibly massive, completely impractical slabs of heavy metal.

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Seventeenth-century Sweden established a national currency backed almost entirely by copper, which forced citizens to conduct basic daily business using incredibly massive, completely impractical slabs of heavy metal. The absolute largest denomination was a ten-daler copper plate that weighed an astonishing forty-three pounds, meaning a simple trip to the local marketplace to buy basic farming equipment practically required the physical endurance of a professional weightlifter and a heavy-duty horse cart. Unsurprisingly, the staggering physical inconvenience of lugging around giant chunks of raw ore eventually inspired the creation of the very first central bank in Europe to issue significantly lighter paper banknotes as a convenient alternative. It is genuinely baffling to consider that an entire national economy once functioned on a monetary system where simply paying off your mounting debts was structurally indistinguishable from participating in a grueling, full-body cardiovascular workout