Watch List notes:

Mynt, Sverige. Johan III, SM 75 var, 1 öre 1590. 2.05 g. Stockholm. The last position of the date was first punched with an up-side-down used "9" making it a "6". When the die engraver realised his mistake, he cleverly tried to cover it up by hand-engraving a thick circle that makes for "0", the actual year to read "1590". This engraver's exercise meant that the "zero" is engraved even deeper that the originally and wrongly punched up-side-down digit "9"/6, causing an obviously higher relief consisting of the "zero" on top of the lower relief up-side-down "9"/6. This specimen is the first and so far ONLY KNOWN specimen of this dramatic still curious year, first to be read "1596" - implying the future year when Sigismund were at reign - rather than the intended year "1590" (compare the next lot). The corpus of Johan III coinage and their varieties as published by Doctor Astley Levin in 1887 (Numismatiska Meddelanden XI) did not list this significant variety. An interesting DISCOVERY PIECE! SMB 78 var.