3 Kopecks - Nicholas II Mule

Bit#375 is a mule — a coin struck from dies not intended to be paired together. In this case, the obverse and reverse dies belong to different denominations, producing a piece that passed through official minting either by accident or, less charitably, by the kind of casual negligence that plagued the St. Petersburg and Moscow auxiliary facilities in the late imperial period. At 0.85 g, it is dramatically underweight for a 3 kopeck piece, which immediately flags the die mismatch to anyone handling it.