In Russia, during the second half of the 17th century, the importance of the kopeck weight increased, as it was reduced several times. When calculating large sums, the simultaneous circulation of coins of different weights led to their weighing and determining their value according to the value of the last mintage.
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In the Moscow state of the 17th century, coins of different weights were used, so they had to be weighed when making calculations.
In the last issue of the annual collection “Auxiliary Historical Disciplines”, which has been periodically published by the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1967, a study on the topic of weighted coins was published.
As author Pavel Sedov from the Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg writes, during the 17th century the weight of silver kopecks changed several times, which must be taken into account when analyzing the price level of that period. of time.
The research is based in part on the analysis of coin hoards from the 17th century. An example is given of a treasure discovered in the early 1930s in the wall of the Novgorod Church of Boris and Gleb, on the territory of the former Plotnitsky End. It consisted of 12,969 coins from different historical periods.
“It is evident that all this numismatic wealth did not pass from hand to hand, but was accumulated by the owner at the beginning of the 18th century in the form of weighted silver,” Sedov writes. “The money houses accepted old kopeks with a “surcharge.” against its nominal rate.”
This practice makes it possible to explain the monetary accounting system of the Moscow State of the 17th century, in which the main monetary denomination was kopeks, but the account was usually kept not in them, but in other “conventional units”: money, altyns. , hryvnias, half rubles and rubles.
According to one version, the decrease in the weight of kopecks in the 1620s could be due to the desire to preserve the ternary counting system, which began to take shape after the monetary reform of Elena Glinskaya in 1535. By the way, for study Preserved monastic records were also used, shedding new light on a long-standing mystery.
The Moscow and Novgorod monasteries systematically reported to their authorities. Records indicate the simultaneous existence of silver coins of different weights. For example, in the book of income and expenses of the elder Bartholomew of the Solovetsky monastery for 1620, an entry was made that for a trip to Moscow he was allocated 100 rubles in “old” rubles, which he exchanged for “new” ones in Moscow. – In total, 21 rubles, 16 altyns and 4 money came out.
And in 1635, the abbot of the Solovetsky monastery, Raphael, exchanged 200 rubles for “old” rubles, receiving for them “45 rubles, 25 altyns and 2 dengi.” Thus, according to the researcher, the “old” money, the most valuable kopecks, were counted separately and kept until the time of delivery in weight to the money deposits. And some of the monastery coins could even be reserved to make silver frames for books and icons.
“Apparently, the quality of kopecks decreased in real value even during the period of circulation of the copper coin: in February 1662, a servant of the Tikhvin Assumption Monastery in Moscow “exchanged twenty-four rubles for bad electoral money for half a mark 2 rubles”, that is, during the exchange and compared to the “bad” currency, the loss was 6.25 percent,” says the author of the study.
In his opinion, the existence of weighted coins in the 17th century indicates the disorder of the monetary economy of the Moscow state. He also points out the fact that there is still no direct evidence of the change from two heavier kopecks to three lighter kopecks in a later era, although such a theory had already been proposed before.
The author offers this explanation: in large payments the coins could be weighed and the value of the silver determined in terms of the current mintage. And in small transactions, the seller could be asked to choose those coins of modern mintage that suited him.
The practice of weighing coins ended only with the monetary reform of Peter I.
