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.
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.