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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;gxseries, post: 77501, member: 4373&quot;]Sorry Mikjo0, you might be a bit too early in winning this contest. I actually haven&#039;t thought of giving out prizes... well if I did, this thread will be filled with the most nonsense idea... so I am not going to voluteer at this stage... <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>But yes, back to the question, you see the question lies upon the ridicious weight issue. It is known that 5kopek coins are somewhat heavy and not suprising overweight. I did mention that most 5kopek coins minted in that era are supposed to be around 40-50grams. Yet, this particular 5kopek is 76.4grams, which is 50% more than the supposely maximum weight or 90% extra of the least weight 5kopek. That is where the figure is a worry. Of course, any could say that overweight 5kopek coins are common. But I have checked at least 20+ 5kopeks with the dealer here who volunteered to help me out and his heaviest was around 60grams. Of course it&#039;s no big deal, but 10 grams meant 1 kopek and 20 grams meant 2 kopeks etc. Or rather the exact value of a 1 kopek is supposed to be around 10.24grams (if you wanted to be specific...) so by having a weight of 76.4grams, this would easily mean a 7.6kopek, not just 5 kopek which is it&#039;s face value. And that is where my question lies... <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> You can&#039;t just joke around that this is a 5kopek as this is where the mint would lose it&#039;s money on... </p><p><br /></p><p>About the wire money, yes they are struck upon crude excess silver wires.&nbsp; Honestly I don&#039;t know how long this was done for... as I am not really a wire money collector... but I know the rough ideas. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> This method was the only way Russia minted such small silver kopeks with their technology. The main reason for this was because there was a period of time when massive silver rubles existed but no small silver coins were minted. Or rather, Russia seriously had no idea where their silver mines where and chances are, there are times when such rubles were overstriked on European silver coins!!! <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie9" alt=":eek:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> So when someone wanted half of the change, or half of the half or some fractions, like how the rest of the Western Europeans did transaction long time ago, coins were cut up. However this faced serious problems as not long as silver rubles were running out, but there was no serious control of how small or rather how varied the weights could be. And this is where wire money comes into the picture of small change. Long excessive silver pieces of wires were rolled out and two dies of the obverse and reverse struck the silver wire stiminously and hence you get impressions of a &quot;coin&quot;. But of course, as the result of using a wire, you get crude shapes. As the coins were finished, they were then clipped off from the wire and hence, the term wire money... <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I don&#039;t claim to be a wire money collector so I can&#039;t quite tell what the reverse could say... usually some of the legends don&#039;t even appear well because they weren&#039;t fully struck!!![/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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