Kopeck - Mikhail I o M, Moscow

Mikhail Fyodorovich, the first Romanov tsar, inherited a monetary system shattered by the Time of Troubles — a decade of civil war, famine, and Polish occupation that had flooded Muscovy with debased foreign coin and counterfeit issues. The wire-cut kopecks struck under his reign were produced by the primitive splash-and-hammer method, with silver wire cut to approximate weight and struck between hand-engraved dies, which accounts for the chronic off-center placement endemic to the type.

The Moscow mint resuming regular production under Mikhail was itself a political signal. Output from these years fed a cash-starved economy still rebuilding from near-total collapse.