1 Kopeck

Russia's small-denomination paper kopeck notes of 1915 were an improvised response to coin hoarding that swept the empire within weeks of the war's outbreak. Silver and copper vanished from circulation almost immediately — civilians hoarded metal instinctively, merchants refused to make change, and the state scrambled for a substitute. The Ministry of Finance solution was to print fractional currency on card-like paper stock, borrowing the designs directly from contemporary postage stamps.

These are sometimes called "stamp money," though they were never adhesive and carried explicit legal tender text on the reverse. Postage stamp imagery adapted as emergency currency was not unique to Russia, but the scale here was enormous.