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5 Kopecks - Peter I
| Issuer | Imperial Russian Mint |
|---|---|
| Year | 1713-1714 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Central device features the Imperial Russian double-headed eagle, displayed with wings spread, each head surmounted by a crown and the whole flanked by elaborate feathered wings. The eagle's breast is covered with overlapping scale-like feathers, and the tails fan broadly below. A single large Imperial crown surmounts both heads at the apex. The coin's milled border surrounds the entire design, with no legend present in the field. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse bears a plain, unadorned field displaying the denomination inscription in three lines in Cyrillic characters: ПАТЬ / КОПЕЕКЪ / 1714, with five raised dots arranged in a horizontal row above the inscription, serving as a mintmark indicator. The date appears at the base in Arabic numerals. The design is bold and simple, with no surrounding legend, enclosed within a milled border. |
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| Additional information |
Peter I's copper and billon small denominations from this period were part of a sweeping monetary reform begun in 1701, designed to replace the archaic wire "fish scale" kopecks that had served Russia since the medieval period. The transition was administratively chaotic — old and new coinage circulated simultaneously for years, and public resistance to the debased new issues was widespread enough that counterfeiting became a serious enforcement problem by 1713.
The billon alloy used here sits notably below the silver content of contemporaneous Western European petty coinage, a deliberate fiscal decision by the reforming tsar to maximize seigniorage while funding the ongoing Northern War against Sweden.