In January 1762 Russian Czar Peter III doubled the value of the copper coins in circulation by overstriking the old ones with new dies. A five-kopeck coin of 1761, for example, now saw the light as ten kopecks. After he was overthrown in June 1762 by his wife, who became Catherine II, the decision was made in January 1763 to reverse the whole process by making the copper coins have the same values as they did before 1762.
Not only were the Peter III overstrikes restruck with the pre–1762 values, but a great mass of new copper coins was minted, especially at Ekaterinburg, Sestroretsk, and St. Petersburg. Moscow also struck its share of the coins. Majority of the overstruck and new coins were made in piataks, 5–kopeck pieces, but there was also struck a reasonable number of one and two kopecks. The denga and polushka – half and quarter kopecks, respectively – were normally struck in much lesser quantities.
The government was satisfied with the copper coinage as it stood in 1768 and all the copper mints except for Ekaterinburg, located just east of the Ural Mountains, were closed. Ekaterinburg was in the midst of a great copper-mining area and ideally situated for a mint striking only copper coins.
Originally the Ekaterinburg Mint had been established by Peter the Great in the early 1720s to prepare copper
