Kopeck - Peter I

Peter I's wire kopecks — struck by the ancient "chekanka" method, in which silver wire was cut into small slugs and hammered between dies — were already technologically obsolete by 1716. Peter had been forcing the transition to Western-style milled coinage since 1700, and these diminutive pieces continued almost by institutional inertia, serving peasant and small-transaction markets that the new round coinage struggled to penetrate. The irregular flan shape is a feature of the method, not damage.

Production of the wire kopeck ceased entirely in 1718 by imperial decree, making the 1716 issue one of the final years of a minting tradition stretching back to Ivan the Terrible.