20 Kopecks 16 orbits, Trial Strike

Soviet trial strikes of this period were produced at the Leningrad Mint as part of ongoing postwar monetary reform experiments. The aluminum composition places this squarely in a series of tests exploring lighter, cheaper coinage metals — the USSR was actively reconsidering its circulating alloys through the early 1950s, though aluminum never made it into standard Soviet kopeck production of this era. The "16 orbits" designation refers to the number of oak wreath sections on the reverse, a detail used internally to distinguish die varieties during trial production.