Kopeck - Boris Godunov OM

Boris Godunov's accession in 1598 was itself contested — he was elected tsar by a zemsky sobor after the extinction of the Rurikid line, making him the first Russian ruler to claim the throne without dynastic inheritance. The kopecks struck under his name carry that political tension implicitly: wire money of this period was a deliberate continuation of Ivan IV's monetary reforms, and Godunov had every reason to project continuity rather than disruption.

The Moscow Mint attribution on these pieces is confirmed by the OM designation, distinguishing them from contemporaneous issues at Pskov and Novgorod.