While the Vikings from Norway and Denmark went hunting for new land in the west and southwest, the Vikings from present-day Sweden usually went east and south-east.
There was another aspect to their business abroad. While the Danes and the Norwegians usually conquered and colonized, the Swedes traded (although they were well armed and certainly knew how to fight) and didn't seek to establish kingdoms and colonies.
There were Swedes that went on voyages with the Danes and Norwegians (at that time the differences between the countries were much less than they are now), but the main stream of Swedish Vikings went eastward. They travelled much farther east than any other European people. The Swedish Vikings even travelled as far as Jerusalem (or Jorsalir as they called it), the Caspian sea, and Baghdad (they called it Särkland). Hundreds of Swedes travelled to the eastern Roman city Constantinople (or Miklagård). Many of them returned rich from their combined trading/plundering expeditions.
There are more ancient English coins found in Sweden than there are in England, and over 90% of all the coins found in Europe from Baghdad and surroundings have been found in Sweden (Gotland to be precise).
But they did establish colonies in North America. One one side of my family, I am descended from Swedish immigrants who founded New Sweden in the Philadelphia & Delaware area in the 1640s. The colony lasted only a few years, eventually conquered by the Dutch and then taken over by the British when the British ran the Dutch out of New Amsterdam.
The Swedes and the Finns sailed together and intermarried a lot too.
That hmmmmmmmm....was in response to the dark haired man comment.
I don't know what period you are talking about here, but my Swedish ancestor arrived on the Kalmar Nyckel (asa a seaman) in the 1640s with the first governor at the age of 19, worked for the governor as skipper of his private yacht for a year and then went back to Europe to collect his wages.
Family history says that his accumulated wages were paid partly in Amsterdam and the remainder at his home port in Sweden. I'm certain that some ships paid their crews out of London too. It only makes sense.
After collecting the rest of his wages in Sweden, he found a bride and the two of them returned to New Sweden where they established a farm and began to raise a family.
If this was the normal pattern of Swedish sailors, it only makes sense that a lot of foreign coinage would arrive back in Sweden where it was used to acquire goods and to pay off debts.
Just guessing...
Recall an episode on History Channel, or some such, where the topic of Swedes 'going South' was detailed very well with some of what you say...spoke of the Swedish DNA being common among certain areas a long way from Sweden....