Kopeck - Vasiliy IV

Vasily Shuisky seized the throne in May 1606 within days of the assassination of the first False Dmitry, whose own coinage had briefly flooded Moscow. His four-year reign was defined almost entirely by crisis — the Bolotnikov uprising, the emergence of a second False Dmitry, and near-constant military pressure that left the government with little administrative stability. Coins issued under his name were struck in the wire-money tradition, hand-cut from drawn silver rod, with output irregular enough that distinguishing his issues from those of his pretender rivals often requires die study rather than visual inspection alone.