Copper pennies from such an early era are quite interesting and unusual in design, as well as being rarely found on the coin. Therefore, it is simply necessary to dwell on them in more detail. Moreover, it can be difficult for an uninitiated person to determine the rarity and even the year of the excavated coin among many samples due to the ancient Cyrillic font that is used on them.
The minting of these kopecks began in 1704. Before this, copper coins were rare in the Russian state. Now a new era of copper money begins. During the period from 1700 to 1718, two mints issued copper kopecks, money and half coins for a total amount of two million rubles with a foot of 20 rubles per pood of copper.
Kopecks with the letters BK (Big Treasury) were minted in 1704-1712 in Moscow at the Embankment Mint. They have a huge number of varieties. Bitkin’s well-known catalog contains several hundred variants of coins, differing in design and combination of obverse and reverse.
One of the rare variants of 1 kopeck of 1718 with the letters “BK”.
Kopecks with the letters MD began to be minted in 1705 at the Kadashevsky Mint. There is also a wide variety of types here. I will try to give the main ones. The photo below shows the earliest type, called the “small horseman”. Such kopecks were minted in 1705-1707.
On the left is the “great horseman” type from 1711-1712, on the right is the “prancing horseman” from 1713.
On the left is the “rearing horseman” type from 1714-1718, on the right is the “leaning horseman” from 1714-1716.
In the period 1716-1718, the “new horseman” type emerged.
This is only a small part of the options for this penny.
Have you found such coins?
Read more about identifying finds.