What Is This Huge Russian Coin?

Nice coin, Krause listed as C#59.3 in copper, Catherine II 1790EM. I'd grade it as VF. $15.00.

echizento

please do let me know if you ever wanna sell it.

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Thanks but is it as boring as that?

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So you make this coin a bit more exciting?

The Russians of this period had a habit of overstriking obsolete coins, rather than going to all the trouble of melting them down.

I believe I can see traces of the undertype: an earlier eagle's feathers at 10 o'clock, between the wing and sceptre. There's also a ghostly "N" hovering above the right tip of the scroll, at 3 o'clock. It's probably the remnant of an "M", from the mintmark. It's also why the crowns on both sides are asymmetrically shaped, and the lettering on the scroll looks mangled.

The Russians did this for several reasons: They were constantly revaluing the kopek as the price of copper went up and down, and coins in circulation were withdrawn, overstruck with the new denomination, and re-issued. But there weren't any revaluations around 1790, and the undertype design appears to be more or less identical to the new design.

Another possibility is even more interesting. In 1788, Sweden attempted to finance it's war with Russia by striking bogus Russian coins, and these large 5 kopeks were a favourite. Sweden, you might recall, had lots of copper, but not much silver (hence the humongous Swedish copper plate money).

The Swedish imitation 5 kopeks (KM/C# 59a) didn't quite have the same design (the shape of the crown and some of the lettering was wrong). It's quite possible that this was one of those imitations, which the Russians subsequently discovered, and promptly legitimized by overstriking it.

There's not enough left of the undertype to be certain either way, but it's certainly potentially interesting. I hope I've at least made this coin a bit less mundane.

As far as I can see, it's definately double struck and unfortunately cleaned. I seriously doubt it's an overstrike - 1790EM is not known for overstrikes. Most overstruck coins have a limited set of years and this isn't one of them. Nevertheless, still an interesting conversational piece. A nice hockey puck really. I do have one which is an overweight 76gram, which is exceedingly heavy compared to the average 50grams.

Nice coin - I often see them in accumulations I review. Is there a reference that lists the "typical" overstrikes? I am not aware of one.

haha.. :)

gxseries Thanks for the list. You indicated that some of these are rare. Are they valuable as well? I would really like to know how to quickly spot any with a significant value not listed in Krause.

I am asking because I sort through large numbers of incomming foreign coins for a nearby retail dealer. I basically check all of his non-US and I pick out the high value coins. I also authenticate rarer US coins as well for him. He pays about 10% of Krause when he takes time to check, but most of the time he just guesses. He gets 500 to 1000 coins per week that I check through and price. These run the gamut from really cheap junk to fairly high value items. I give him a Krause estimate so he can re-sell them and maximize his profit.

I am of course most interested in the counterfeit coins and I buy (or am paid with) those. But I also want to ID anything special so that it won't be sold off at junk prices to other dealers. That is part of the value I can bring to the table but Russian coins are outside my comfort range - like Arabic and Chinese coins are.

I believe it was three weeks ago that I handled a dozen copper coins from Russia for him. They were all Catharine the great types of various denominations in rather high grades (VF to AU)- at least as good as the 5 Kopec that started this thread. In that group 6 had clear traces of an undertype. They may have been multiple strikes, but I could not match designs. There was one that was overstruck on a very clear host. They were sold in a bulk lot to another dealer (a Russian) for $6 each about 30% of the Krause estimate I provided. My friend paid $1 to 3 each so he was happy with profit but I wonder if I should have picked them up on spec. There are a large number of Russians in the area so Russian copper and silver comes up every couple months.

Any help would be appreciated.

Perhaps the next time a big lot of "strange stuff" like this arrives really cheap - I will take a flyer on them.

gxseries - Thanks for the help - based on the photos - I think most of the overstruck Russian coins fall into the "common" type you picture above. But I will keep my eyes open and offer to buy any that come in in the future.