Kopeck - Mikhail I oM

Mikhail Fyodorovich, the first Romanov tsar, ruled a state still rebuilding from the Time of Troubles — a decade of civil war, famine, and foreign occupation that had nearly destroyed Muscovite coinage infrastructure entirely. The wire-cut kopeck, produced by hand-hammering slivers of silver rod between engraved dies, changed almost nothing in method from the preceding century, which is precisely why attribution to specific reigns depends almost entirely on the abbreviated mint and tsar names punched into the dies. Moscow's "oM" designation distinguishes this issue from simultaneous production at Novgorod and Pskov.