Jefimok Rouble - Alexey Mikhailovich Countermarked over 'Lübeck Thaler 1549'

The jefimok was not a Russian coin — it was a foreign thaler forcibly conscripted into the Russian monetary system by decree in 1655, driven by the ruinous cost of the Thirteen Years' War with Poland-Lithuania. Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich's government, unable to mint sufficient silver from domestic sources, countermarked captured and purchased European thalers with two punches: a mounted horseman and a date stamp reading 1655. The underlying coin became legally equivalent to 64 kopecks, well below its actual silver value, which guaranteed hoarding and rapid disappearance from circulation.

The program collapsed within a year. A Lübeck thaler of 1549 beneath the countermarks places this example among the oldest host coins used — over a century of wear before it was officially absorbed into Muscovite currency.