Vasily I inherited Moscow's minting apparatus from his father Dmitry Donskoy, who had introduced coinage to the principality only in the 1380s — barely a generation before these dengas were struck. The Moscow mint at this period was producing coins under the shadow of Tatar suzerainty, and many issues of Vasily I carry Tatar tamgas on the reverse as a political concession to the Golden Horde, whose formal overlordship Moscow still nominally acknowledged.
HP II#1320А places this among the better-documented varieties of Vasily's long reign, though attribution of early Moscow dengas remains contentious given the absence of mint marks and the inconsistency of die cutting across the period.
Vasily I inherited Moscow's minting apparatus from his father Dmitry Donskoy, who had introduced coinage to the principality only in the 1380s — barely a generation before these dengas were struck. The Moscow mint at this period was producing coins under the shadow of Tatar suzerainty, and many issues of Vasily I carry Tatar tamgas on the reverse as a political concession to the Golden Horde, whose formal overlordship Moscow still nominally acknowledged.
HP II#1320А places this among the better-documented varieties of Vasily's long reign, though attribution of early Moscow dengas remains contentious given the absence of mint marks and the inconsistency of die cutting across the period.