During the uneasy co-tsardom of Peter I and Ivan V — imposed after the Streltsy revolt of 1682 forced a compromise between the Miloslavsky and Naryshkin factions — wire money of this type was struck bearing Ivan's name to maintain the fiction of equal rule. Ivan V was by all accounts mentally incapacitated and largely ceremonial, yet his name on coinage carried political weight enough to prevent further revolt. These small hammered wire pieces, cut from drawn silver rod and struck between crude dies, follow a production method Russia had used essentially unchanged since the fifteenth century.
During the uneasy co-tsardom of Peter I and Ivan V — imposed after the Streltsy revolt of 1682 forced a compromise between the Miloslavsky and Naryshkin factions — wire money of this type was struck bearing Ivan's name to maintain the fiction of equal rule. Ivan V was by all accounts mentally incapacitated and largely ceremonial, yet his name on coinage carried political weight enough to prevent further revolt. These small hammered wire pieces, cut from drawn silver rod and struck between crude dies, follow a production method Russia had used essentially unchanged since the fifteenth century.