96 Kopecks - Elizabeth Krasny

The 96-kopeck denomination is one of the stranger artifacts of mid-18th century Russian monetary policy — struck specifically for circulation in the Baltic provinces of Livonia and Estonia, where the local reckoning ran to 96 kopecks per ruble rather than the standard 100. The denomination made no sense within Russia proper and was never intended to. Elizabeth's government was accommodating a conquered population that still thought in terms of the old Swedish and German monetary systems absorbed during the Great Northern War.

Production of this type was short-lived, confined essentially to the late 1750s before the Baltic monetary system was gradually unified with the imperial standard.