25 Kopecks - Alexander II / III

The 25 kopeck denomination occupied an awkward position in the Russian silver system — too small for significant transactions, too valuable for daily peasant life. Circulation was thin, and many examples were hoarded or exported rather than spent. Alexander II's monetary reforms of 1860 reorganized the State Bank and reanchored the ruble to a silver standard, directly driving the continued production of this type across his reign and into that of his son.

Alexander II was assassinated in March 1881 by Narodnaya Volya bombers in St. Petersburg, making the transition-year pieces of 1881 among the more historically freighted in the series.