Item number: A39

Year: AD 1533-1584

Material: Silver

Size: 8.42 x 8.89 mm

Weight: 0.15 g

Provenance: Katz Auction 2023

The obverse of the coin features a bird, said to be a dove, facing to the right, leading numismatists to colloquially refer to it as the “bird.” On the reverse side, there is an inscription in ligature form, “King ГОСУДАРЬ”,which translates to “Sovereign” in English. Due to the small size of the coins, which are often smaller than the minting dies, few examples show the entire design, and often only part of it is visible.

From the 9th to the 11th century, the first coins of Kievan Rus were born on the land of Kievan Rus (which later became Russia and other countries). The gold coin is called “zlatnik”, and the silver coin is called “srebrenik”.However, the invasion of the Mongolian Golden Horde in the 13th century plunged the principalities of Kievan Rus into the “Tatar yoke” for more than two hundred years.

Historians generally believe that this dispersion and isolation led to a two-century coinless period (12th to 14th centuries). According to the Museum of the Bank of Russia, all coins from the East and Europe stopped flowing into Kievan Rus during this period. In addition to large-scale trade that still used silver bars “grivna” as a medium of exchange, the role of coins in daily economic activities was replaced by barter for beads, squirrel skins, bags of grain, and barrels of honey.

But after conquering the Slavs, the Tatar Mongols of the Golden Horde reintroduced the concept of coins. The Golden Horde minted coins by cutting silver wire and hammering it into a flat shape. In the AD 1360s, Grand Duke of Moscow Dmitry Donskoy was the first to mint wire money in his territory, and neighboring principalities began to follow suit. At first, their coins were patterned after those of Mongolia, but later they began to have their own various designs. In AD 1380, a coalition of principalities led by Dmitry Donskoi defeated the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo. Since then, the Golden Horde began to decline.

During the tenure of Ivan III Vasilyevich in AD 1502, the Grand Duchy of Muscovy even destroyed the Golden Horde. Under the rule of Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), the Grand Duchy was transformed into the centralized Russian Tsarist State in AD 1547. Ivan IV’s violent temper and high-handed rule gave him the nicknames “Thunder Emperor” and “Ivan the Terrible” in history.

However, before Ivan IV took over the throne, his mother Elena Glinskaya acted as regent. In AD 1533, under the currency reform promoted by Yelena, coins weighing about 0.68 grams were called “kopek”. Almost all kopeks have text on one side and a knight riding a horse pointing his spear to the lower right on the other side.

Since the word spear (копье) in Russian is similar to kopek, it is often thought that this is the origin of the name of this coin. But this etymology is controversial, because it may also be named after the Central Asian Mongol Khan “Kebek” or the Russian word for money (копить).

The 1/2 kopek coin was called “denga”, and its plural form “dengi” is still the Russian word for “money”. The denga design is similar to the kopek, but the knight on the horse holds a saber instead of a spear.

The 1/4 kopek coin, known as a “polushka”, has the horse and knight replaced by a bird.

Russian wire money patterns from AD 1533 to 1717

物件編號: A39

年代: 公元 1533-1584 年

材料: 銀

尺寸: 8.42 x 8.89 mm

重量: 0.15 g

來源: 捷克Katz 拍賣 2023

錢幣正面有一隻朝右的飛鳥(據說是鴿子)，所以被錢幣學家簡稱為「鳥」。錢幣背面有連字“君王ГОСУДАРЬ”的銘文。受限於硬幣的尺寸往往小於鑄造模具，少有樣本能完整呈現出設計的全部內容，經常僅能看到其中的一部分。

公元9-11世紀時，於基輔羅斯Kievan Rus(之後成為俄羅斯等國)這片大地上誕生了基輔羅斯的第一種硬幣。被稱之為“zlatnik” 的金幣，和名為“srebrenik” 的銀幣。但公元13世紀蒙古金帳汗國入侵，讓基輔羅斯諸公國陷入兩百多年的「韃靼之軛」。歷史學家們普遍認為這種分散和孤立帶來了長達兩個世紀的無硬幣時期(Coinless period 公元12～14世紀)。據俄羅斯銀行博物館所述，此時期所有自東方和歐洲的錢幣都停止流入基輔羅斯。除了大型貿易仍有使用銀條“grivna”作為交易媒介，硬幣在日常經濟活動扮演的角色，被珠子、松鼠皮、袋裝穀物和桶裝蜂蜜等，以物易物的方式所取代。

但征服斯拉夫人後，金帳汗國的韃靼蒙古人將硬幣的概念重新引入。金帳汗國鑄造硬幣的方法是將銀線剪斷，然後錘打成扁平狀。公元1360年代，莫斯科大公 德米特里·頓斯科伊(Dmitry Donskoy) 最先於他的領地開始鑄造硬幣金屬絲錢幣(wire money)，隨後相鄰公國也開始效仿。起初，他們的錢幣圖案模仿著蒙古的錢幣，但之後便開始有了自己各式各樣的設計圖案。公元1380年，多個公國的聯軍在德米特里·頓斯科伊領導下，於庫里科沃戰役打敗金帳汗國，自此金帳汗國開始式微。

公元1502年伊凡三世(Ivan III Vasilyevich)任內，莫斯科大公國更消滅金帳汗國。在伊凡四世(Ivan the Terrible)統治下，公元1547年將大公國改制為中央集權的俄羅斯沙皇國。伊凡四世的暴戾脾氣和高壓統治手段，為其在歷史留下「雷帝」和「恐怖伊凡」綽號。

不過伊凡四世尚未親政前，由其母親葉連娜·格林斯卡亞(Elena Glinskaya)代為攝政。公元1533年在葉蓮娜推動的貨幣改革下，將重量約0.68克的錢幣被稱為“kopek”。幾乎所有的kopek一面都有文字，另一面則是騎著一匹駿馬並把槍矛指向右下方的騎士。

由於俄文中槍矛(копье)與kopek相似，常被人認為這就是此錢幣稱呼的由來。但這種詞源學存在著爭議，因為它也可能是以中亞蒙古可汗 怯別(Kebek) 的名字或俄語中 存錢(копить) 一詞為名。

1/2 kopek的錢幣，被稱為“denga”，其複數形式“dengi”至今仍是俄語中的”錢”一詞。denga設計與kopek類似，但駿馬上的騎士手持軍刀，而非槍矛。

1/4 kopek的錢幣，被稱為“polushka”，其圖案中的駿馬和騎士都被一隻鳥所取代。

公元1533-1717年俄羅斯的金屬絲錢幣圖案