Wire coins, scales, scales - a type of coins minted in Rus' from the middle of the XIV century to 1717. They differ in a characteristic elongated drop-shaped shape and an uneven edge, which is associated with the peculiarities of their manufacture.
Due to the imperfection of hand-chasing technology and the poor quality of the metal, coin dies, used in the manufacture of scales, wore out very quickly. Therefore, the image of the obverse and reverse of the coin was first carved on queen cells made of the best metal. Then, imprints were made from the queen cells on coin stamps, while a negative image was obtained on them, that is, all the convex elements of the pattern became depressed and vice versa. The stamps obtained by this method were hardened and were ready for work. The queen cells could serve for years until they themselves wore out. From time to time, the image on them was corrected, but in general, a whole series of coin dies with almost the same image was taken from each queen cell, which makes it possible to combine coins by stamp types and trace their evolution and chronology.
A whole team of craftsmen usually worked at the mint - blacksmiths, draggers, sweepers, fighters. The prepared metal, and in the case of silver, these were European coins - efimkas or silver items, were melted and poured into special oblong shapes. During remelting, the metal was purified from impurities and ligatures, which made it possible to obtain silver of a very high 960th test. The resulting rods were drawn into a silver wire of the desired diameter, which was cut into pieces of equal weight. Further, these blanks were flattened and money masters minted coins from them.
Such a technology for manufacturing coin blanks led to the fact that the circle turned out to be uneven, usually two protrusions are clearly visible on two opposite sides of the scales, which remained on the blank after it was separated from the wire. In German numismatics, Russian wire coins even received the name Tropfkopeke (drop penny), which characterizes their shape well.
To some extent, this manufacturing technique protected against counterfeiting of silver coins, since low-grade silver was not as malleable and did not allow drawing wire of the desired diameter. According to some information, Novgorod coins from the period of the Novgorod Republic were on average minted from silver of the 898th test, although there are coins of different purity of the metal from the 795th to the 930th test.