Kopeck - Peter I

Peter I inherited a monetary system unchanged since the 16th century — hand-struck wire money, cut from silver rod and hammered into irregular flans. These so-called "fish scale" kopecks were deeply inefficient and nearly impossible to counterfeit-proof, a problem Peter intended to solve with his later Westernizing monetary reforms of 1698–1704. This 1697 piece predates those reforms by a year, placing it in the final cohort of the old system.

The wire kopeck was eventually abolished outright in 1718, with holdout stocks ordered recalled.