Mikhail Fyodorovich, first of the Romanovs, inherited a monetary system wrecked by the Time of Troubles — a decade of civil war, foreign occupation, and competing pretenders that had gutted state revenues and flooded the market with debased imitation coinage. These wire-cut kopecks, struck by the fish-scale method from hand-drawn silver wire, were produced at multiple mints simultaneously as the new dynasty scrambled to reassert financial credibility. The mintmark sequence across this reign is notoriously difficult to attribute with precision, and GKH2 revises several earlier attributions.
Mikhail Fyodorovich, first of the Romanovs, inherited a monetary system wrecked by the Time of Troubles — a decade of civil war, foreign occupation, and competing pretenders that had gutted state revenues and flooded the market with debased imitation coinage. These wire-cut kopecks, struck by the fish-scale method from hand-drawn silver wire, were produced at multiple mints simultaneously as the new dynasty scrambled to reassert financial credibility. The mintmark sequence across this reign is notoriously difficult to attribute with precision, and GKH2 revises several earlier attributions.