25 Kopecks - Nikolai I / Aleksandr II Warsaw Mint

Warsaw Mint silver from this window sits at an awkward historical junction: production ran through the Crimean War, during which Russia's financial reserves were under severe strain and silver coinage was being hoarded across the empire. The Warsaw facility — operating under Russian imperial authority since the Congress Kingdom was effectively absorbed after the 1830–31 November Uprising — struck these pieces as a subordinate mint, its Polish identity bureaucratically erased but its craftsmen unchanged.

C#166.2 distinguishes the Warsaw strikes from St. Petersburg issues by mintmaster initials, not mint mark. MW privy marks identify the responsible officials, a detail that collapses under casual inspection but matters considerably for attribution.