W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

Descriptive Outline of the Coinages of Europe 361
introduced fresh types or improvements of the old. Of
Peter's widow we possess the remarkable specimens of 1726
in copper and a grosch of 1727 in the same metal of Peter
;
II. a pattern kopeck of 1731 on an unusually thick flan ;
Anne and John or Ivan III. (1740-41) several copper essays;
of Catherine II. an imperial and double imperial in gold of
;
the rulers from 1758 to 1809 a very handsome series of
5 -kopeck pieces in copper; and of Nicholas, 3, 6, and 12
roubles in platinum, ranging between 1828 and 1832.
From Peter the Great to the present time the Russians
have bestowed much care on their copper issues, and each
prolonged reign has been productive of repeated and varied
coinages, which are uniformly w r ell
engraved and well struck.
The Czar Alexander I.
(1801-25), after testing their
capacity by a coinage of roubles and half roubles, ordered
of Boulton of Birmingham a complete set of presses on the
English principle for the St. Petersburgh mint.
The portraits on the silver and copper cease after
Catherine II., and Alexander I.
placed his bust only on the
half imperial of 1801 and I 8 1 7, struck for Poland. It is
usually believed that the Emperor Paul, the son of Catherine,
was led to suppress this feature by his own unprepossessing
personal appearance but the idea of
;
sanctity associated with
the office of the sovereign may have formed an inducement
to take a course so opposed to Western policy.
In our Catalogue of Mints numerous entries will shew
that the Russians, content at first with Kiev and Novgorod,
then with Moscow, where there were four mints, and Mojaisk
(the latter after 1457), and eventually with Moscow and
St. Petersburgh, gradually instituted many other places of
production and the Czars of ; Georgia certainly, and doubtless
the numerous feudal chiefs within Russia itself, had
separate monetary systems, of which we are not likely to
gain very accurate particulars. The government has at
various times struck special money for Poland, Finland,
Livonia and Esthonia, Moldavia and Wallachia, Georgia
and Siberia. Of all of these an account is
supplied elsewhere.
of