I have no idea what this is, other than an ancient coin. It's about the size of 2 pencil erasers. The second photo, I don't even know the correct way to position it. I have absolutely no idea what it's supposed to be. I only know I paid very little for it so if you can, please help me out on this one. Thanks in advance.
In my opinion, it appears rather simillar to one issued during the reign of Michael Romanov. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/a-book-with-a-surprize-russian-wire-money.108531/
It has that oblong flan that you want from 'wire money.' Named after the striking process; the flans were cut from long bands of flattened silver. And you've got a Lot of reverse legend. The people here who can read Russian (Teacher, I Don't raise my hand) --and there Are some, who are also Much better versed in the series generally-- can help you with that. It will reliably give you the name of the issuing monarch. ...Some of them go back to the 15th century, if not before. I have one representative example of Ivan the Terrible; scared to even try to find the .jpg. But the obverse has St. George slaying the dragon. A very common motif in Russian ikony, contemporaneously and later. ...Wait! Maybe your obverse Isn't St. George and the dragon. Very impressionistically, variations of that obverse are more distinctive of the earlier issues. Several of which predate the formally Tsarist ones. With the clarity of the legend, it's like, consider the source, but you Might have something Very interesting.
Wire Money IVAN THE TERRIBLE RUSSIA Ivan IV The Terrible 1533-1584 AR Denga Moscow mint Horseman riding right brandishing sword - Inscription in lines G&K 59 Rare type RUSSIA Ivan IV The Terrible 1533-1584 AR Kopek Wire money Novogorod mint 1535-1538 Horseman riding right brandishing sword - Inscription G&K 75 PETER THE GREAT Russia Peter the Great AR Kopek 1682-1725 Wire Money Obv: Horse Rider Rev: Great Tsar Peter 11.1mm 0.27g
The 2nd and 3rd lines visible on the op read "Michael Feodorovich". For comparison: https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces17466.html
Photo from the link provided by Bradley Trotter. Collecting these means deciding what you must have on flan and what you are willing to lose. They are coins better represented by line drawings since photos must show only part of the detail. It bothered me that so many of these seem to be die duplicates until I learned that these were made from hubbed dies. These are the latest coins I was willing to accept in my definition of hand struck and collectable. I drew the line at machine made coins but these turned out to be mechanically reproduced dies.
As always I’m way too late. Wire money is so strange to me. Why, after 2000 years, does one decide to strike off of wires instead of the tried and true methods?
...Well, this is also the culture that gave you vodka (...like Scotch, from a comparable latitude). Extraordinary circumstances call for corresponding measures.
If the poor quality control of late Rome is any indication, I don’t doubt the ruskies for drinking on the job 1500 years later!
Well, except, more like a millennium later, if you're talking about 'wire money.' For the interval in between, you get Western European medieval, especially c. 10th-12th centuries. That's when, on the basis of the strike, you have to ask yourself, 'how hungover was he?' (PSA: regarding vodka, unless you're someone who's lived with it longer than I have any intention of doing, it's like, Don't! Too easy, too fast.)
I believe the appeal was being able to produce a large number of coins exactlt the same weight without weighing flans. Wire is pulled to be a certain diameter and clipped to a set length making every one the set size. The coins were made to spend and deliver silver - not to impress us with their beauty.
@dougsmit, thanks for bringing us back to the utilitarian side of what was happening. With, from here, [what can only be characterized as --where's the strike-through function on this?...] admirable concision.
Novgorod kopek: КНЗ (prince) ВЕЛIK (great) НГОР (of Novgorod) И (and) ВСЕА (the whole) РУСН (of Russia).