Kopeck - Mikhail I МО/СКВА

Mikhail Romanov was elected tsar in February 1613 by a zemsky sobor convened to end the catastrophic decade of civil war and foreign occupation known as the Time of Troubles. These wire-cut kopecks were among the first coinage issued under his authority, struck at the Moscow Mint as the new dynasty scrambled to reassert functional central government over a treasury that had been systematically looted by successive pretenders and Polish-Lithuanian occupiers.

The МО/СКВА mintmark split across two lines is diagnostic for Moscow production in this opening period of Romanov rule, distinguishing these pieces from contemporaneous output at Novgorod and Pskov.