1/4 Kopeck - Alexander III

Alexander III despised the reforms of his assassinated father and reversed many of them within months of taking the throne in 1881. The quarter kopeck itself was a pre-reform survival — a denomination so small it had almost no practical purchasing power even by the standards of Russian peasant wages, yet the mint continued striking it throughout his reign as a matter of fiscal conservatism rather than economic utility.

Dies for this type frequently show clashing and minor positional variants across the thirteen-year run, a consequence of high-volume production on aging equipment at the St. Petersburg mint.