500 Kronor 2014, Sweden
| in Krause book | Number: 66c |
| Years of issue: | 2014 |
| Edition: | |
| Signatures: | Johan Gernandt, Stefan Ingves |
| Serie: | 2001 - 2005 Issue |
| Specimen of: | 2001 |
| Material: | Cotton fiber |
| Size (mm): | 150 х 77 |
| Printer: | Tumba Bruk (Crane and Co.), Tumba, Sweden |
* All pictures marked 
are increased partially by magnifying glass, the remaining open in full size by clicking on the image.
** The word "Specimen" is present only on some of electronic pictures, in accordance with banknote images publication rules of appropriate banks.
Description
Watermark:
HM The King of Sweden Charles XI. Denomination 500.
Avers:
The engraving on banknote is made after this painting of HM The King of Sweden Charles XI at the Battle of Lund in 1676. Painting by Swedish nobleman and portrait painter David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl in 1682.
The Battle of Lund, part of the Scanian War, was fought on December 4, 1676, in an area north of the city of Lund in Scania in southern Sweden, between the invading Danish army and the army of Charles XI of Sweden. The Danish had an army of about 13,000 under the personal command of 31-year-old King Christian V of Denmark, aided by General Carl von Arensdorff. The Swedish army, which numbered about 8,000, was commanded by Field Marshal Simon Grundel-Helmfelt and the 21-year-old Swedish king Charles XI. It is one of the bloodiest battles in percent of casualties on both sides ever fought on European soil.
Charles XI, also Carl (Swedish: Karl XI; 24 November 1655, old style - 5 April 1697, old style), was King of Sweden from 1660 until his death, in a period of Swedish history known as the Swedish Empire (1611-1718).
Charles was the only son of King Charles X Gustav of Sweden and Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp. His father died when he was five years old, so Charles was educated by his governors until his coronation at the age of seventeen. Soon after, he was forced out on military expeditions to secure the recently acquired dominions from Danish troops in the Scanian War. Having successfully fought off the Danes, he returned to Stockholm and engaged in correcting the country's neglected political, financial and economic situation, managing to sustain peace during the remaining 20 years of his reign. Changes in finance, commerce, national maritime and land armaments, judicial procedure, church government and education emerged during this period. Charles XI was succeeded by his only son Charles XII, who made use of the well-trained army in battles throughout Europe.
The fact that Charles was crowned as Charles XI does not mean that he was the 11th king of Sweden who had the name Charles. His father's name (as the 10th) was due to his great-grandfather, King Charles IX of Sweden (1604-1611), having adopted his own numeral by using a mythological History of Sweden. This descendant was actually the 5th King Charles. The numbering tradition thus begun still continues, with the present king of Sweden being Carl XVI Gustaf.
In the 1682 assembly of the Riksdag of the Estates, the king put forth his suggestion for military reform, whereby each of the lands of Sweden were to have 1,200 soldiers at the ready, at all times, and two farms were to provide accommodations for one soldier. His soldiers were known as Caroleans, trained to be skilled and preferring to attack rather than defend. Savaging and looting were strictly forbidden. Soldier huts around the country were the most visible part of the new Swedish allotment system. However, Charles also modernized the military techniques and worked to improve the overall skill and knowledge of the officers by sending them abroad to study.
The Swedish navy suffered major defeats against Danish-Dutch forces in the Scanian War, revealing weaknesses in organization and supply, and weaknesses in basing the fleet at Stockholm. The navy was bolstered with the founding of a naval base at Karlskrona in 1680 which became the main base of future operations. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
When Karlskrona was founded in 1680, it was primarily thought of as a military city, with many deflang-enses and fortifications exploiting the particular topography of the city. Some fortifications were located on the main island (Trossö) such as the Bastion Aurora, built at the beginning of the 18th clang-entury,but much of it was located on the nearby islands (Ljungskär, Mjölnareholmlang-en, GodnattKoholmlang-en and Kurrholmlang-en) or more distant, such as the islands closing the bay, with in particular the important fortress of Kungsholmlang-en and its circular port.
But the civil part of the city was also carefully planned. It has a hippodamic plan, with however some diagonal streets, created because of the relief of the city clang-enter. Nicodème Tessin l'Ancien fut principal responsable du dessin des bâtimlang-ents, et il donna à la ville un style baroque très homogène. 
Left of the portrait of King is the building of Old national Bank of Sweden in Stockholm (Södra Bankohuset) from lithography edited by Erik Dahlberg "Suecia Antiqua et Hodierna" ("Sweden antique and modern") in 1691.
In 1668 the Riksdag (the Swedish parliament), which consists of the nobles, the clergy and the burghers, decided to re-establish Stockholms Banco under the name the Bank of the Estates of the Realm.
During the Caroline years Kings Karl XI and Karl XII exercised considerable influence over the Bank. It was forced, for instance, to finance the Great Northern War. The financial strains this entailed meant that no money could be paid out.
Charles XI's minority reign, when Sweden was administered as a regency, saw the founding in 1668 of what is now Sveriges Riksbank.
Södra Bankohuset (Swedish: "The Southern [National] Bank Building") or Gamla Riksbanken ("The Old National Bank") is a building in Gamla stan, the old town of Stockholm, Sweden, together with Norra Bankohuset (Swedish: "The Northern [National] Bank Building") the location of the Bank of Sweden until 1906. It is facing the square Järntorget on its west side and Skeppsbron on its east, while two alleys passes north and south of it, Norra Bankogränd and Södra Bankogränd.
The western quarter of the building including the façade, built in 1675-1682, was designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder (1615-1684); the western court and its two wings were built in 1694-1712 under the son of the latter, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger (1654-1728); while the eastern half and façade were designed by Carl Hårleman (1700-1753) and built during the period 1733-1737.
Coherently designed as elongated block-size palace, Södra Bankohuset unites the prestigious line-up along Skeppsbron with the narrow urban conglomeration of the old town. The plain architraves and original Renaissance design of the western façade is repeated around the building, and is in the eastern façade supplemented with pediments, channelled rustication up to the mezzanine, and a rocaille over the entrance pouring out bank notes and coins. The western portal is a quotation of Vignola's portal at Villa Farnese, in Caprarola.
On Banks facade are some bands with the motto of Swedish Riksbank (micro-text).
"Hinc robur et securitas" (Latin: For strength and security). The motto of the Swedish Riksbank. All banknotes from the 1890s and up until the 1963 had this motto on oberse. Between 1963 and 1986 there was only one hundred thousand bills that had the motto. Nowadays it is only five hundred bills and this is in the form of microtext. The purpose of the motto is to give confidence in the paper money issued by Riksbank. The Riksbank is the ultimate guarantor of the value of money.
Denominations in numerals are in top left and lower right corners. In words at the top.
Revers:
The engraving on banknote is made after the painting of Christopher Polhem by Swedish painter Johan Henrik Scheffel in 1741.
Christopher Polhammar (18 December 1661 – 30 August 1751), better known as About this sound Christopher Polhem, which he took after his ennoblement, was a Swedish scientist, inventor and industrialist. He made significant contributions to the economic and industrial development of Sweden, particularly mining.
Polhem was born on the island of Gotland, in the small village of Tingstäde, situated northeast of Visby.
Originally the Polhem family came from Austria to Pomerania, Germany, from where his father, Wolf Christoph Polhammer traded with Visby, where he would eventually settle down to become a skipper. When Polhem was 8, his father died and his mother, Christina Eriksdotter Schening from Vadstena, Östergötland remarried. As a result of conflicts with his stepfather, his private tuition was no longer paid for and Polhem was sent to live with his father in Stockholm. In Stockholm he attended a German school until the age of 12 when his father died; once again Polhem was left without the possibility of education.
He took a job as a farmhand on Vansta, a property in Södertörn, Stockholm. He quickly rose to the position of supervisor, being responsible for supervision and accounting, for which he was well suited by his affinity for mathematics. He worked at Vansta for ten years, during which period he constructed a workshop where he made tools, repaired and constructed simple machinery to earn money.
Hungering for knowledge within his fields of interest, mathematics and mechanics, he soon realized that he would get no further without learning Latin. Self-studies were attempted, but given up; Polhem realized he needed a tutor. In exchange for constructing a complex clock, he was given Latin lessons by a local vicar.
Word of Polhem's mechanical skill spread quickly and a member of the clergy wrote the professor of mathematics at Uppsala University, Anders Spole to recommend Polhem. Spole, grandfather of Anders Celsius, presented two broken clocks to Polhem and offered to let him study under him if he could repair them, Polhem repaired the clocks with no difficulty and began recovering years of lost education in 1687, at the age of 26.
He married Maria Hoffman in 1691, together they had two children, Gabriel and Emerentia.
In 1716 he was ennobled in gratitude of his services to the nation by the king and changed his name from Polhammar to Polheim, which he later changed to Polhem.
He and his son Gabriel Polhem were both elected members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1739, the year the Academy was founded.
Polhem died of natural causes in 1751 in Stockholm.
According to Polhem's autobiography, the event that marked the beginning of his career was the successful repair of the unfinished medieval (16th century) astronomical clock by Petrus Astronomus at Uppsala Cathedral, which had remained unfinished and broken for more than a century.
Left of the portrait of Polhem is the hoisting mechanism at Blankstöten, Polhem's first machine at the Falun mine, completed in 1694.
In 1690 Polhem was appointed to improve upon the current mining operations of Sweden. His contribution was a construction for lifting and transporting ore from mines, a process that was rather risky and inefficient at the time. The construction consisted of a track system for lifting the ore, as opposed to wires; the construction was powered entirely by a water wheel. Human labor needed was limited to loading the containers. Being new and revolutionary, word of Polhem's work reached the reigning king, Charles XI who was so impressed with the work that he assigned him to improve Sweden's main mining operation; the Falun Copper mine.
The water-powered machines designed by Swedish engineer Christopher Polhem between 1690 and 1710 further extended the possibilities of the Stangenkunst. On the one hand, Polhem built several 'traditional' Stangenkunsten for Swedish mines, connecting pumps in mine shafts with waterwheels up to 2,500 m. away. The picture below shows the rods of a Stangenkunst at the Bispberg mine. Polhem used a double set of wooden rods, which sat parallel to each other. The system is similar to the pantograph system, but turned on its side and with metal hangers instead of wooden ones.
On the other hand, Polhem also constructed rod systems for hoisting up ore from mines shafts. Strictly speaking, these were not Stangenkunsten (they were called "Hakenkunsten"), but the design principle was nearly identical.
Faluner Hakenkunst PolhemThe first Hakenkunst was completed at Blankstöten in the Falun copper mine in 1694. The water-powered machine hoisted buckets loaded with ore out of a mine shaft, carried them to a dump, emptied them, and automatically returned the empty buckets to the mine. The whole mechanism was operated by reciprocating rods.
The energy from a waterwheel was transmitted via horizontal rods to the mine shaft. The horizontal rod was joined to two pairs of hooks furnished with vertical poles suspended into the pit. Buckets were hooked onto the poles at the lowest level, and then lifted vertically to a higher pair of hooks by the alternate motion of the pairs of poles. This motion continued until the bucket was raised up the surface. The buckets were emptied by means of an iron chain which hooked onto the bottom. The vertical poles were 60 metres long and had 15 pairs of hooks.
A similar hoisting machine was completed in 1698 for the Humboberget mine. This machine consisted of two sets of poles with attached hooks. One set brought the loaded carriers to the surface, while the other brought the empty carriers down the mine.
In 1701, Polhem completed another hoisting machine for the King Karl XI shaft at the Falun mine. He used two rope drums for raising the ore barrels, which were rotated by a complicated wooden rod transmission from a reversible water-wheel with one crankshaft.
Funded by the Swedish mining authority, Polhem traveled throughout Europe, studying mechanical development, he returned to Sweden in 1697 to establish laboratorium mechanicum in Stockholm, a facility for training of engineers, as well as a laboratory for testing and exhibiting his designs, it has then morphed into the prestigious KTH Royal Institute of Technology, whose history began with king Charles XI and his praise for Christopher Polhem for his mining efforts prior to the Christopher Polhem European journey to learn everything in Europe about the new breakthroughs in the science of mechanics. (www.lowtechmagazine.com)
Behind the portrait and under it is the cog, from Christopher Polhem's factory at Stjärnsund, in Dalarna. On background of it are mathematical calculations from one of Christopher Polhem's notebooks.
Polhem's greatest achievement was an automated factory powered entirely by water; automation was very unusual at the time. Built in 1699 in Stjärnsund, the factory produced a number of products, deriving from the idea that Sweden should export fewer raw materials and process them within their own borders instead. The factory was a failure; it met great resistance among workers who feared they would be replaced by machinery. Eventually most of the factory was destroyed in a fire in 1734, leaving only the part of the factory that produced clocks left. The factory continued producing clocks, known for their high quality and low price. Although the popularity of the clocks diminished during the beginning of the 19th century, clock-making continues to this day at Stjärnsund, still producing around twenty clocks of the Polhem design per year.
Another product from the factory was the Scandinavian padlock ("Polhem locks", Swedish: Polhemslås), essentially the first design of the variation of padlocks common today. Economically, the factory was unfeasible, but the king at the time, Charles XII, was supportive and gave Polhem freedom from taxes to encourage his efforts.
The factory of Stjärnsund was visited by one of his contemporaries, Carl Linnaeus, who wrote about the factory in his diaries as Nothing is more optimistic than Stjärnsund ("Intet är spekulativare än Stjärnsund").
Polhem also contributed to the construction of Göta Canal, a canal connecting the east and west coasts of Sweden. Together with Charles XII of Sweden, he planned the construction of parts of the canal, particularly the canal locks in the XVIII century; it was not to be finished until 1832, long after his death.
Other major contributions made by Polhem were the constructions of dry docks, dams and as mentioned before, canal locks, which he designed together with his assistant and friend, Emanuel Swedenborg.
Above the Falun copper mine and left of the cog (water wheel) is, again, the motto of Swedish Riksbank "Hinc robur et securitas" (as micro-text).
Denominations in numerals are in top right and lower left corners. In words at the bottom.
Comments:
Engravers: Gunnar Nehls (Karl XI), Toni Hanzon (Polhem) and Agnes Miski (front page with the Banco House and the Diligence).
I got this banknote in Swedish town Fårösund, on island Gotland, at 8 May 2017.
Banknote paper: Manufactured of cotton fibres that are not fluorescent, which is to say they do not emit any light under ultraviolet light (other types of paper may emit a bluish glow).
A pattern that, together with the pattern on the reverse of the note, forms an image showing the denomination of the note when you hold the banknote up to the light.
You can see from the banknote number which year the note was printed. The first figure is the same as the last figure in the year of printing. The second and third figures show the decade the note was printed, in accordance with a special code.
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