20 Kopecks - Catherine II Portrait, novodel pattern

Novodels — official restrikes produced by the St. Petersburg and Moscow mints, often decades after the original issue — occupy an awkward but legitimate place in Russian numismatics. This piece falls into that category: struck from dies that may postdate 1764, produced for collectors rather than circulation, almost certainly at the behest of the Imperial Cabinet or a private buyer with court connections. The practice was formalized under Alexander II but had roots going back much earlier.

Bitkin 1235 places this among the rarer pattern-class novodels of Catherine's early coinage reform period, when the monetary system was being restructured following the chaos of the Seven Years' War expenditures.