THE COINAGE OF Imperial Russia has long been divided by numismatists into two different kinds: that for the homeland and that for special areas, such as Siberia or Finland. In a small number of cases, however, we find coins being made for lands under direct occupation by the Russian army during wartime. One of the most interesting of these special military currencies was minted for East Prussia from 1759 to 1762.
The Seven Year’s War (called the French and Indian War in its American aspect) began in 1756 as a result of the expansionist policies of the Prussian government under Frederick II. This king wanted Prussia to become a much larger and important state than it was.
During the early 1750s there was considerable jockeying for power as rival European states sought to create an alliance by which Frederick could be stopped. At first the British, under King George II, were in the anti-Prussian camp but in a sudden about-face linked their European fortunes to those of Prussia. The reason was concern that the small German state of Hanover would be lost to them if the Prussians were victorious; George I (1714-1727), the father of George II, had been called from his Hanover domains to take the British throne. Hanover and Britain were thereby linked in the person
