extant4cell Posted April 11, 2020 Report Share Posted April 11, 2020 Officially SPb mint did not issue 2 kopecks of Elizsaveta past 1759. However, as we know reports aren't always correct... I found a picture of this 1760 coin on one of Russian forums, where it was identified as Moscow mint, which would be expected. If you only look on the coin type (scroll with inscription under St. George, plus overstrike in 1760 could only mean Moscow mint). However, apart from that, the coin is actually screaming (to me at least), that it was made with dies from Saint Petersburg mint. See for yourself: numbers 1 and 7, the form of St. George, overstrike on SPM kopeck, the form and angle of scroll ends - typical for SPM coins: Saint Petersburg mint 1759 2 k. Coin in question (1760 SPM) coin from Moscow mint coin from Ekaterinburg mint This is something interesting that I discovered today, thought to share with you, guys... Happy hunting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViFi Posted April 11, 2020 Report Share Posted April 11, 2020 Hello If you take the handbook of Uzdenikov and look at 2 kopecks of Elizabeth period you can see that for SPB mint there are no letters on the coin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViFi Posted April 11, 2020 Report Share Posted April 11, 2020 This is coverpage of the Uzdenikov´s handbook. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted April 11, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2020 There are no mint indicating letters on 2 kopecks of Elisaveta Petrovna for all 4 mints that produced them, and Uzdenikov had no idea how to sort them out by mint. The coin you pictured (097) is from Ekaterinburg mint, for example. Until recently it was unknown how to sort coins by mint. In the last 20 odd years that changed. If one is heavily into copper coins of this period, one can find out how to do this. See, for example here: http://www.coinpeople.com/forum/34-russian-coin-articles/... I've been studying these coins for the last 10 years (in depth since 2015) and every mint has it's own style which on a coin screams what mint it belongs to just as if it had mint letters on it... Particularly, in later years of production... That's why, after years of experience, to find something new, pushing the boundaries of the known, is very exciting fo me, and thus my original post. 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sigistenz Posted April 11, 2020 Report Share Posted April 11, 2020 Yes indeed, owning the book you can tell the mint of Elizabeth's and Peter III's no mintmark coins. It's available from extant4cell. Sigi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted April 12, 2020 Report Share Posted April 12, 2020 Extent4cell, do you have mintage figures from Sestroretsk mint? Just wondered if the dies were transferred from St Petersburg - they aren't too far apart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted April 12, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2020 Yes, indeed, the dies were originally made by SPM and given to SM (subsidiary mint) for use. SM didn't make any changes to the dies, apart from some minor repairs, making it pretty much impossible to tell coins apart, unless you look at the edges of the coins. Edging tools were a bit different. But it is still pretty easy to tell them apart, when you see overstrikes from kopecks or 5 kopecks into 2 kopecks with the SPM/SM tool set - they belong to SPM. When you see overstrike from 2 Ore (on extremely rare occasions) - that's SM. When you see coins without signs of any overstrike (on new blanks or on well prepared 2 Ore flattened cuts), look at the coin edge. By the way, early SPM/SM dies all had 3 gems in the crown, like MM and EM, but later they designed crown with 5 gems, making it easier to recognize SPM/SM 2 kopesks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ViFi Posted April 13, 2020 Report Share Posted April 13, 2020 On 4/11/2020 at 11:36 PM, extant4cell said: There are no mint indicating letters on 2 kopecks of Elisaveta Petrovna for all 4 mints that produced them, and Uzdenikov had no idea how to sort them out by mint. The coin you pictured (097) is from Ekaterinburg mint, for example. Until recently it was unknown how to sort coins by mint. In the last 20 odd years that changed. If one is heavily into copper coins of this period, one can find out how to do this. See, for example here: http://www.coinpeople.com/forum/34-russian-coin-articles/... I've been studying these coins for the last 10 years (in depth since 2015) and every mint has it's own style which on a coin screams what mint it belongs to just as if it had mint letters on it... Particularly, in later years of production... That's why, after years of experience, to find something new, pushing the boundaries of the known, is very exciting fo me, and thus my original post. 😉 You are professional in this type of coins of course! I just ordered you book to get some more knowledge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted April 13, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2020 Thank you. Let me know in personal message, once you get it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxseries Posted April 16, 2020 Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 I'm quite intrigued. Did some reading and gave it some thought. Let's leave the origins of the mint aside for the time being. The reference that I used is from Uzdenikov - the book that ViFi has shown. I'm only looking at Elizabeth I from 1755 - from the first overstriking event. Moscow mint has reasonably good mintage from 1755. For some reasons records are missing for 1760 and 1761 St Petersburg mint also shows some interesting data. From 1755 to 1759, gold coins have been regularly produced and all of a sudden, this stopped in 1760 and 1761. This recommenced in 1762. Silver coin production also took a hit of about 50% production loss. There are no records of copper coins struck in 1760 and 1761. Ekaterinburg Mint doesn't seem to be affected for that couple of years. The only explanation that I could see is the seven year war Russia had against Prussia. As any wars are involved, this most likely affects the production of coins. I think this warrants an investigation if production of coins are authorized - it just seems something is not quite adding up. I'm sure this may spark up some interesting discussion like what we had before That said, I have yet to buy your book, extant4cell! Shame on me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extant4cell Posted April 16, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2020 I think that had to do with running out of coins to overstrike, more than anything else, and copper for the new coins. SPM and SM were mainly overstriking 1 heavy kopecks into 2 kopecks and produced very little of new 2 kopeck coins. SM produced 5 kopecks from copper that it piled up from different sources (old coins / coins from Baltic states and cannons' metal), but stopped in 1759 due to the fire at the mint, I think. MM mainly produced 2 kopeck overstrikes and some new 2 kopecks, also the new 5 kopecks from the copper it received from Ekaterinburg. EM mainly produced new copper coins of all denominations as the source of copper was right there. They did overstrike smaller coins, including 2 kopecks, but main focus was on new coin production. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.