Good evening all, what a wonderful website I am a collector since many years but am happy my sentiments in the russian coin arms race are mirrored amongst all of you... crazy stuff.. I look forward to reading and participating in future threads.. Now a few questions:

1) I bought a coin today in a market 5 kopecks copper CPB 1867 is VF+ (conservative but there is some metal like solder on one v small part of the face which I cannot understand how it got there.. can be molten off i guess as has not damaged the coin in any way) otherwise with traces of lustre. I understand it to be scarce is this true and how many were minted could you tell me more.. will post some pictures later

2) I have a 2 kopeck coin 1915 no mm but struck in iron / nickel ? is identical to normal issue but no mm. I have absolutely no idea what it is for.. a while ago a dealer told me it was perhaps very rare but he could not find any record of the striking of such coins perhaps an expert can shed some light? below some pictures:

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Welcome to coinpeople Ippocampos

I'll try to answer the two questions:

1) The 1867 SPB 5 kopeks can be quite tough to find in nice condition. This is the year when the new and very last design of the 5 copper kopeks started but by all means, they are not scarce according to Uzdenikov. I don't have an example yet.

2) I'm somewhat suspicious that the coin you have shown is struck in iron or nickel. If it is, you should perhaps test it against a magnet and see if it's magnetic. Pure nickel is magnetic by the way. For some reason, I can only see it as plated. The reason why there is no mintmark for coins struck in 1915-1917 was due to that St. Petersburg sounded too German and it was named Leningrad. St. Petersburg mint didn't have the time to think of a new name for it's mintmark just dropped it's sign.

It was renamed Petrograd in 1914. Leningrad name was only after Lenin's death in 1924.

Welcome to coinpeople!

Is there any possibility that it is a copper coin which was dipped in mercury?

Thanks Guys. By the way my name is Konstantinos (I dont like nicknames ........ hides our identity..!)

1) Here are the pictures .. as you can see the obverse has some kind of material stuck to it which i dare not remove until i know what it is.. in order not to damage the coin...

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2) It is definitely magnetic, Alex Basok was interested, but I was not a seller, he had studied it but could not identify any mintage figures I owe him an apology for his time spent.. I thought perhaps through the forum and considerable shared expertise we might find out.

There goes the mercury-coated copper theory...

Thanks Banivechi - totally forgot about Petrograd. Looks like I better read up on Russian history again.

Hello Konstantinos,

I'm puzzled over what you have there. Let's go through the possible theory if it is indeed magnetic. But first, let's go through coin 1. There is nothing much you can do unless you are willing to damage the coin. The material that is stuck there is quite likely to be copper acetate or maybe verdigris. If you are lucky and I am totally wrong, you might want to try dipping it into PURE acetone WITH caution. I had one nasty case with a copper coin. Let's say, it's just easier to leave it as it is for the moment until future technologies enable us to know what it is.

Question 2: If it is indeed magnetic, chances are it's more likely to be iron than nickel from the "rust" that I see. Rust can't possible occur on nickel coins. This only leaves to the possiblity of the German mint instead of the Belgium mint involved in the early days. Here is a page from Uzdenikov.



However though if you notice, it's quite different as the text is written completely backwards and the eagle used is the German eagle instead of the Russian double headed eagle. This is indeed very puzzling. Was there ever a need to strike coins in iron? Maybe since this was the time when the mintmark was removed and some trial samples were done and copper historically and still present are most of the time more expensive than iron. Can it be a counterfeit? I don't know but it can be a possiblity.

Just to double check, can you give us the weight and the photo of the edge too? That will be great Thanks for sharing

Thanks GX the coin is not here at this computer but will get the edge and weight reported asap. It is puzzling indeed .. (will also provide better scans) happy to say I was 'given' the coin as junk about 10 years ago for free!! so is not a problem if it is ends up being counterfeit but if not interesting to open this chapter for discussion as is intriguing.
Thanks also for advice on 5 kopeck coin.. does not look like verdigris but more like solder (lead) or another metal which makes me think why would anyone do that!!! but am surely not alone in this sentiment...

This coin was struck in 1915, during world war 1, unless I am mistaken. Prices on copper I believe went up, copper is used in ammunition manufacturing. Maybe the mint was considering striking coins in iron? The german occupation coins were struck in iron a year later. Iron was more available and probably cheaper. I believe the czar even received a Fabergé egg that year made of steel or iron due to the war.

This is just my theory, I've never heard of an iron 3 kop apart from the patterns mentioned in Uzdenikov.

As far as the 5 kop - it sort of looks like solder to me. This is probably a bad idea, but you could try touching it with a fine tipped solder iron, if it liquefies you can use a special copper wipe to remove it.

2) I have a 2 kopeck coin 1915 no mm but struck in iron / nickel ? is identical to normal issue but no mm. I have absolutely no idea what it is for.. a while ago a dealer told me it was perhaps very rare but he could not find any record of the striking of such coins perhaps an expert can shed some light? below some pictures:

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Welcome to coinpeople,
2 kopecks looks like silver plated or after cleaning silver come out,I have couple before with the same look.Not 100% copper was used for coin ,the other components metals incl.:silver or other metal... . 2k of 1915 no m/m wt.6,56 gr. Diameter 21,1-24,3 mm.Mintage 33,750,000 was struck on St.Peterburg mint 1915-1917 and most coming coins in Uncalculated condition cost $10.00-$15.00.

Would it be magnetic?

Coin shouldn’t be magnetic.
It is more questions
1. More professional or museum should review the coin (Possible Mr.Basok can tell more…)
2. I don’t have the answers if coin was long time in the box with magnetic metal can be effect as magnetic not to copper, but to other components.
3. Coin looks like was copper before, because I see redness on the picture of the coin.

That was one of the reasons why I asked if it might be copper dipped in mercury.

But the owner says it is magnetic, which suggests it is struck in iron or steel and the redness is rust.

Possible Spectrum test (spectral analysis)will bring more results.

What about the weight of the coin? Iron is lighter than copper. I checked in the periodic table it is 12% lighter. Even if the composition of a regular 2 kop piece is only half copper, you should see a measurable difference in the weight of your coin even if it is only a 5% difference.

Good news copper is also denser than iron! So your coin should definitely be lighter than standard.

Finally back home. It weighs exactly 4.86 gr. Will put better scans on latest tomorrow.

There you go. It is 25% lighter than the copper once. So it is most likely made of steel or nickel. Since no one on this forum (from what I understood) has seen anything like this, and these are very serious people - I would conclude that this is something unique. The big question is - who made it and why?

May I ask how and where you obtained this coin?

I'm surprised that such an obviously unusual coin would remain (apparently) unpublished and unknown all these years.

One thought that does occur to me is that perhaps the WWI German occupation iron coinage might also have had unadopted patterns made in imitation of the standard Imperial Russian design. But this is pure speculation on my part and I am unaware of any evidence which supports it.

Of course... I was given it as 'junk' by a dealer in the UK about 18 years ago .. he said this is rubbish take it as a gift... it was only after closer inspection, weighing etc that i more recently realised the difference. I will also post scan with the copper counterpart for comparison.
I am intrigued as there must be more around no-one would have made just one unless it was done in error...?

If it is an error, for what coin would the blank have been intended?

Does the coin show any evidence of overstriking (maybe a foreign coin of some sort ended up falling into the hopper)?

No evidence of overstriking. Here are the scans with a copper (original) version
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And reverse
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must find out if there are others...

Also for my 5 kopeks 1867 CPB (Copper) Brekke shows as very rare also on collection at Yale says only 44 were struck! why would Uzi not show this.. have more been found or are mintage figures wrong ??

Mintage is likely wrong. There are certainly more than 44 sloshing around (though the 44 may be 44 roubles). I have images of 3 of them in my database and I'm not even actively cataloging 19thC yet.

Steve

The 1867 dies were almost certainly used in early 1868. It was the general rule to use dated dies only
in the specific calendar year tut we know that that was not always true. The 1894 portrait silver of Alexander
III is a good example, as most of this mintage was struck in 1895.

RWJ

Thanks Guys! was sure Uzi could not have got it wrong! Am reverting on iron/nickel as hear from a friend in St. Petersburg that museums there may have some iron regular issues too but don't know how many and denominations yet.