Kopeck - Peter I

Peter I's wire kopecks of this period were struck using the ancient chekanka method — a small blob of silver wire hammered between hand-cut dies — unchanged in Russian minting practice since the fifteenth century. Peter despised them. He considered the primitive, lozenge-shaped flans an embarrassment compared to the milled coinage he had studied in Western Europe, and by 1718 he abolished the denomination entirely in favor of modern round-planchet production. The 1699 date places this piece at the very start of his monetary reform campaign, just one year after his return from the Grand Embassy.