I remember reading somewhere, either here, or in a book, i cant recall, that Alexander I copper 5 kopecks 1802 and later, were struck on cast planchets.. can any one confirm or deny this, and if its true what other coins were struck this way? thanks.

Highly doubtful they were on cast planchets. The surfaces are too nice and I've never seen one with casting voids or entrapped dross, which are inevitable in casting. While many think that casting is an easy and cheap operation it's not. For large volumes, rolling and cutting are just as efficient and far more consistent.

BTW, I once sectioned and etched a 1780s junk piece. It was obviously rolled.

rittenhouse, if rolling and cutting is said to be efficient and consistent, how exactly can you explain the mass difference of 5 kopeks of Elizabeth II technically it's supposed to be 46grams by law but I have seen wild variations from 36 to 76 grams? (appearently there is a sample that is 100+grams but it might be a novodel - I can't quite remember)

I discussed this w/ RWJ. Since the copper pieces were essentially bullion to back paper money and were tallied by weight, the mints did not attempt to stringently control thickness and they cut the entire sheet including the tapered lead and tail sections.

Are you speaking only about the 18th century 5 kopek coins here, or are you also talking about the smaller denomination copper coins? Keeping these as backing for paper money suggests that they would not be issued for circulation, but would be retained in banks instead.

With the bulk of the circulating coinage being copper, the scarcity of the lower denominations vs. the relatively common 5k coinage suggests that it was only the 5k coins that were backing the paper issues.

Gresham's law suggests that the heavier coins of any given denomination would be hoarded, while the lightweight versions of the same face value would be heavily circulated. The wide variation in weights might make melting the heavier coins profitable.

Without widespread melting, it seems logical that the heavy coins would more easily be found in high grade, but the light ones would be heavily worn. I have never noticed such a relationship between weight and grade (but admittedly have never thought to look for one).

Or is the variation in weights not significant enough to make it worthwhile?