The Coinage of Russia
1761-1762
THE MOMENTOUS EVENTS that occurred in Russia in the spring and summer of 1762 have long stirred the imaginations of historians and numismatists. Out of the troubles arose one of Russia’s greatest rulers: Catherine II, the Great. Her husband, Peter III, had inherited the throne on Dec. 25, 1761, upon the death of his aunt, the Empress Elizabeth.
The future Peter III was born at Kiel ( Germany) on Feb. 10, 1728, the son of Anna Petrovna ( daughter of Peter the Great) and her husband, Karl Friedrich, duke of Holstein- Gottorp. He was originally christened Karl Friedrich Ulrich but changed to a Russian name when he was invited to Russia in late 1741. The young Peter was also heir to the throne of Sweden but chose to hitch his star to the Russian Empire. In November 1742 he formally became a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.
His great aunt, Elizabeth, had seized the throne in November 1741 and was concerned about her successor. In early 1742 she officially named Peter the heir- apparent and in 1744 arranged a German bride, Princess Sophia of Anhalt- Zerbst, for him. Sophia took the Russian name of Ekaterina ( Catherine) and was later to seize the throne herself, becoming known to history as Catherine the Great.
Peter was physically unattractive as a youth and a bout with smallpox left him disfigured. For this reason, he began to prefer people, especially women, with disabilities. His mistress, for example, was privately described by contemporaries as deformed.
In September 1754 Catherine delivered a healthy baby boy, named Paul. Catherine was indiscreet enough to confide to the British Ambassador that the Grand Duke’s help was not sufficient to provide the necessary heir. Many historians think that Sergei Saltykov was the father, but others believe that Peter was responsible. It is a question unlikely to be settled in the near future.
One point made by some historians is that the son, Paul, was as erratic as the father, Czar Peter III. ( Paul was czar from 1796 to 1801; his bizarre ways led to his assassination by an officer clique in 1801.) It is for this reason that many do think that Peter III was the biological father.
Throughout the 1750s matters drifted from bad to worse. Peter’s juvenile behavior frequently got him into trouble with the Empress, but Elizabeth always managed to forgive her wayward nephew. In 1757 when Russia entered the Seven Year’s War, Peter was at least discreet enough not to go public with his admiration of Prussian King Frederick II.
Elizabeth died on Dec. 25, 1761, and Peter III was now emperor and autocrat of all the Russias. One of his first acts was to draft orders to army field commanders to stop all offensive action against Prussia; this would save Frederick II from the almost certain destruction of his
kingdom. ( The orders were formalized in a secret treaty of Feb. 25, 1762.) The reversal of war aims created a legacy of ill- will for Peter III, especially from the army and upper classes. His days were now numbered.
The new czar issued many decrees as the months passed, many of which were quite sensible ( his German advisors suggested most of these) but others were viewed by many as the product of a madman. In the early spring of 1762, he abruptly decided to go to war against tiny Denmark, because of a minor territorial dispute with his native Holstein- Gottorp. This projected meddling, in an area where Russia had no vital interests, was the last straw for some of the army commanders and plots against Peter began to multiply.
Peter’s wife, Catherine, was openly snubbed at state functions and the royal mistress increasingly heaped with honors. Catherine soon formed a group of admirers and secretly plotted to seize the throne. On June 28 her forces struck, and Peter was arrested. The coup d’etat was in doubt for a few hours but by the end of the day she was in effective control. Her key advisor in all of this was Gregor Orlov, one of the most interesting people produced by Imperial Russia.
A few days after the forced abdication, Peter was conveniently strangled at a July 6 party hosted by, of all people, Gregor Orlov. All concerned insisted that the strangulation was an unfortunate accident in a drunken brawl, but nobody then or now believes that. One wit of the time described Catherine II as a “self- made widow.” That judgment is likely to stand the test of time.
One of Peter’s stranger ideas was to recoin all of the old silver coins in use, but which were too worn to suit his taste. He suggested that new dies ( with the old dates and designs) be made specially for this purpose. This strange suggestion led nowhere but some think it was the basis for the restriking of coins for collectors undertaken on a broad scale under Catherine II.
During the reign of Peter III, the copper coinage was changed completely from that in effect under Elizabeth. In 1755 Count Peter Shuvalov had persuaded the Empress that copper one- kopeck pieces should be struck at the rate of 8 rubles to the pood ( 16.38 kg) of copper meaning that 800 one- kopeck pieces would be struck from this quantity of metal. Shuvalov engineered another devaluation of the copper in 1757, when the standard became 16 rubles.
Count Shuvalov was unhappy with the 16-ruble standard because it did not produce sufficient revenue at a time that Russia was locked in a death struggle with Prussia. In 1759 he began urging another round of copper depreciation, this time to 32 rubles from a pood. Elizabeth balked at the idea, but shortly after his accession to power, Peter III ordered the change advocated by Shuvalov.
An imperial ukase was issued on Jan. 17, 1762, and the mints began to produce copper coins on the new standard. The designs were the same as on the patterns ordered by Shuvalov at the end of the 1750s except that only the smaller denominations were struck at that time. Under Peter III it was planned to strike several denominations: 10 kopecks, 4 kopecks, 2 kopecks, 1 kopeck, and 1/ 2 kopeck ( denga).
As Peter wanted these coins in circulation as soon as possible, the mints were ordered to overstrike existing copper coins with the new designs. In one case, the 5 kopecks of 1723– 1730, many of these coins had been restruck into kopecks under the 8- ruble standard of 1755 and then again into 2 kopecks under the revised weight standard of 1757. Now in 1762, the old piataks, a popular name for 5 kopecks of the 1720s were made into 4- kopeck pieces.
Because of the restriking carried out under Peter III, one can find for a collection several different edges on the 4- kopeck coins. Both lettered edges ( from the 1755– 1757 coinages) and reticulated edges ( a series of overlapping
X’s) of the 1720s can be found.
The 10 kopecks have the standard double- headed eagle on the obverse, with 10 stars around; the latter was meant to identify the value for those who could not read. The reverse had military trophies at the bottom, an odd choice considering Peter’s abrupt reversal of the war effort in 1761, along with the denomination and date.
Lesser copper denominations had a similar reverse to that of the 10 kopecks, but the obverse carried the familiar figure of St. George slaying the dragon, the arms of Moscow. The denga and kopeck were not regularly struck and exist only as very rare patterns.
None of the upper- value copper coins is to be considered rare, but they are sometimes difficult to find because type collectors need all three for their sets. The 10 kopecks brings a good price while the 4 and 2 kopecks are not far behind.
Silver was also subject to change, though this is not readily apparent from just looking at the coins. The designs were of course changed, but on January 17 Peter III ordered that the fineness and weight of the silver coinage be reduced. In modern terms the fineness was lowered from .802 to .750; in Peter’s day this was expressed as going from 77 to 72. ( Pure metal was rated in Russia at 96.)
The weight of the fine silver in the ruble also fell from 20.73 grams to 18 grams, where it was to stay, except for a short period in 1797, until the end of Russian imperial coinage during World War I. The half ruble was propor
tional but lower coins were reduced slightly from this standard in order to make up for the additional costs in minting; for example, the silver 5 kopecks should have weighed 1.2 grams on a strictly proportional standard, but the actual legal weight was set at 1.17 grams. This type of standard for lower denominations was generally accepted practice in most European mints.
It seems likely that engravers at St. Petersburg had already prepared portrait hubs of Peter prior to the death of Elizabeth. There had been several occasions in the 1750s in which she came very close to dying and everyone knew that Peter would succeed his aunt. For this reason, portraits could have been prepared as early as 1755 and simply updated slightly in 1762 to represent natural aging; Peter was 32 when he became czar.
Ruble coinage at both St. Petersburg and Moscow seems to have used the same portrait hub for their mintages. The regular- issue pieces all have the standard double- headed eagle on the reverse with mintmaster initials; interestingly enough, the ruble reverses also seem to use the identical eagle hub at both mints. This was no doubt done to expedite the coinage. St. Petersburg also used a special pattern portrait bust that varies in minor details from the adopted style.
The regular issue of rubles is not signed by the engraver, but the work was probably executed by Timofei Ivanov; the special pattern ruble portrait is signed by Samuel Yudin. One of the patterns uses the old type of reverse last seen under Peter II in which the letter Pi ( the Russian P) is linked in the form of a cross; the reverse is illustrated with this article. The other pattern uses the standard doubleheaded eagle, but both are of extreme rarity.
Restrikes ( novodels) of rubles struck under Peter III were made later, probably under his son Paul I, who ruled from 1796 to 1801. Novodels of the regular St. Petersburg issue were made as well as copies of the monogram patterns. Restrikes for Peter III are relatively rare and seldom seen for sale.
Half rubles ( poltinas or 50 kopecks) were considered of less importance, but the situation is quite similar to the ruble. Here again the same portrait hub was used for the dies but there are differences. It appears that both mints used an eagle hub that had formerly been employed to create reverse dies of this denomination for Elizabeth.
Mint officials intended to issue silver coins of 20 kopecks, 15 kopecks, and 5 kopecks for circulation, but the sudden downfall of Peter III at the end of June 1762 put an end to such plans. Only a series of extremely
rare patterns exists to show collectors what might have been. The only known example of the 20 kopecks, for example, is in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg; its design is similar to patterns for this denomination executed under Elizabeth in 1760.
The 1760 patterns for the silver 5 kopecks have considerable interest because of their variety. One has a doubleheaded eagle on the obverse with the value on a cartouche on the other side; the reverse in this case is close to the design of the regular grivennik ( 10 kopecks) struck under Elizabeth.
The other pattern 5 kopecks, of which there are two varieties, has the initials of the Czar ( either PF or P3) on a cartouche while the reverse has the date and denomination with a crown above. It is especially interesting to note that the initials P and F are in Latin characters; the first of the two stands for Peter Fedorovich, the Czar’s name in Russian. One of these 5- kopeck coins ( with P3) is at present in the Smithsonian while the other two are in the Hermitage.
Unlike the copper and silver coinage, that struck in gold is straightforward. Peter III ordered the striking
of 5 and 10- ruble pieces, similar in style to those coined under Elizabeth but with the usual change in portrait. The unsigned portrait is thought to be by St. Petersburg engraver Timofei Ivanov.
Some past references have reported that gold coinage was also executed at Moscow, but this is incorrect. All of Peter III’s gold was struck at St. Petersburg, with the ducat considerably rarer than either the imperial ( 10 rubles) or half imperial ( 5 rubles). The ducat design is quite similar to the last issues under Elizabeth and again was simply a matter of expediency in order to get the coinage underway. A new reverse design would have taken too long.
The ducat was sufficiently rare in the 18th century that restrikes were also made of this denomination, probably under Paul I in the late 1790s. It is unlikely that Catherine II would have encouraged the collecting of such pieces, originally struck for a husband she despised.
It should be noted that some numismatists also include in their collections a somewhat rare taler coined for Peter in 1753 in his capacity as Duke of Holstein- Gottorp. It was struck at Mannheim, under mintmaster Anton Scheffer, whose initial ( S) is under the bust.
Illustrations are, in some cases, marked as novodels or restrikes, which has the same meaning. Novodels were made for collectors at the St. Petersburg Mint until the early 1890s, when the practice was ended at the request of Grand Duke Georgii Mikhailovich.