Grivennik

[Steve D'Ippolito]

If anyone else has one of these (especially from Saint Petersburg), please add it to this thread.

 

Ioann is also known as Ivan III. He's also known as Ivan VI. He's the Third to the Russians, who only count full Tsars (Ivan the Terrible, and Peter's half brother Ivan were the first two Ivans who were Tsars), but the Sixth to Western historians, who count the prior Grand Dukes of Muscovy named Ivan (Ivan Moneybags, Ivan the Red, Ivan the Great). He came to the throne at the age of 11 weeks (and was genealogically the only remotely suitable male heir to the throne. He was overthrown by Peter I's daughter Elizabeth, who had him imprisoned (he was killed under Catherine II in 1764, having had little to no human contact in the interim). Elizabeth needed to make Ivan an unperson, forgotten, and consequently recalled all the coinage at decreasing rates of payment to encourage quick redemption, possession of which eventually came to be very harshly punished (I don't know if it involved the death penalty or not). Grand Duke Georgi Mikhailovich in the late 19th century still needed special permission to get into this part of the state archives for his research on coinage. As a consequence all Ivan III silver coinage is _rare_, even more so than coinage for Peter III who only reigned for six months.

 

For the non-specialists who see this thread, a grivennik is a 10 kopek piece. Peter I adopted this term for 10 kopek pieces; Americans might want to think of it as a "dime". As near as I can tell the word came from the Ukrainian term for the ingots used in the middle ages, that Russians termed a "ruble". Ukraine is independent now, and uses the term for their own currency. However they pronounce the Г as "H" and it's usually rendered in English as "Hryvnia" or some variation thereof.

 

 

Obverse legend: Ioann III B. M. Emp[eror] and Autoc[rat] of AllRussia. Mintmark ММД for Moscow Monetniy Dvor (Moscow Mint, literally Moscow Coin Works). The B M stands for "By the Grace of God"

 

Reverse: "Grivennik" (Split across two lines).

 

Disclaimer: This coin used to be mine, but has been sold.

 

Edit: Added all the explanations for non-Russian-knowledgeable readers.