Kopeck - Peter I

Peter I's wire kopecks — the chekanka — were a medieval holdover he despised and ultimately abolished. These tiny hand-struck pieces were produced by cutting silver wire into slugs and striking them between dies, a technique unchanged since the 15th century. Peter replaced them with Western-style milled coinage beginning in 1700, but wire kopecks continued in parallel production for years to satisfy peasant demand, with 1717 falling near the very end of that overlap period. The Moscow mint struck the last wire kopecks around 1718, making this among the final examples of a 250-year-old minting tradition Peter considered an embarrassment to his modernizing empire.