Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Kopeck - Peter I
| Issuer | Imperial Russian Mint |
|---|---|
| Year | 1703 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The reverse bears a multi-line Cyrillic inscription filling the entire field of the irregular flan, rendered in bold capital letters in the archaic Old Church Slavonic style. The legend identifies the ruler as Tsar and Grand Prince Peter Alexeyevich of all Russia. The text is arranged in horizontal lines across the coin, a hallmark of Russian wire money of this period, with the lettering showing the characteristic angular forms of early 18th-century Muscovite epigraphy. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Peter I reformed Russian coinage in 1700, abolishing the old wire-money system that had persisted essentially unchanged since the fifteenth century. The tiny silver kopeck of 1703 is a transitional artifact of that upheaval — still struck by the ancient chekanka method using hand-cut wire blanks hammered between dies, even as the new round machine-struck coinage was already being introduced for larger denominations. Petersburg's infrastructure simply couldn't produce enough reformed coinage fast enough to kill the old system immediately.
Wire kopecks continued alongside round coinage until 1718, when Peter finally abolished them by decree.