Jefimok Rouble - Alexey Mikhailovich Countermarked over 'Mansfeld-Eisleben Thaler'

The jefimok ("ефимок") program of 1655 was a direct response to Muscovy's chronic shortage of silver bullion: the state had no domestic silver mines and depended entirely on imported Western European thalers as raw material for its coinage. Rather than melt and restrike the coins outright — a slow and expensive process — Tsar Alexey Mikhailovich ordered captured and purchased thalers counterstamped with a horseman punch and a date cartouche, effectively conscripting foreign currency into the Russian monetary system overnight.

The Mansfeld-Eisleben thalers used as host coins came from the Saxon copper-mining county of Mansfeld, whose silver output had declined sharply by mid-century. The counterstamp program lasted only a single year before being abandoned, likely because the jefimoki circulated at a forced valuation — 64 kopecks — that the market refused to accept at face.