Did you think that coins were always round? No, coins of all different shapes are found in different countries. Take, for example, the clips of the Swedish Empire – large squares and rectangles made of copper, which sometimes fall under the coil of a metal detector and delight the heart with a good find, but not everyone knows about the fact that there were square coins in Russia!
It turns out that in the Russian Empire, square coins were minted during the time of Emperor Peter the Great right after the end of the Northern War. Peter tried to limit the production of counterfeit coins and one of the forms of counterfeiters was the introduction of square coins. The idea was taken, again, from defeated Sweden, because it is known that in 1724, Vasily Tatishchev, a prominent statesman and mining specialist, went to Sweden on a business trip to get acquainted with the technology. The idea was simple: replace all copper nickels with square-shaped coins weighing a pound of copper and with a face value of 10 rubles, thus the value of the coin was determined by the cost of copper. Coins began to be minted after the death of Peter, in 1725, in denominations from ruble to ten-kopeck piece.
The main circulation of coins occurred in 1726. That same year, in addition to half-ruins and half-poltiny coins, both square nickels and kopecks were issued. The most common coin was the hryvnia, then half-fifty rubles, rubles and half-rubles.
It is reasonable to assume that such boards and squares were inconvenient to use and pay for, and therefore already in 1727, the minting of such coins was stopped and the boards were slowly withdrawn from circulation, which led to their great rarity today! Look in the fields, such coins are expensive, counterfeits are not uncommon, so you need to take photos and videos of the finds already in the pit!
Good luck on the mine and all those square finds!
Looking for more finds? Cool, big, expensive and interesting? We write about the finds here , but how to identify them is all here .
