Kopeck - Peter I

By 1711, Peter I's wire-money kopecks were already anachronisms — the tsar had introduced Western-style milled coinage in 1700 and actively wanted these hand-struck slivers of silver gone. They persisted anyway, produced on the old fish-scale flan technique dating back to the 15th century, because rural Russia neither trusted nor had access to the new round coinage. The 1711 date places this piece in the thick of the Northern War, the year of Peter's catastrophic Pruth River campaign against the Ottomans, when he narrowly escaped capture.

Production of wire kopecks ceased entirely in 1718 by imperial decree.