The year 1741 is one of the unusual history where a baby, Ioann III whom was crowned by his aunt, Anna in the late 1740. Her death shortly meant that the 2 months old (?) baby waas to be in charge of the whole Russian terriorty, which seemed to be very unlikely. It was just a matter of time that a coup d'etat would occur, making Catherine the next Tsarina.

While MOST rubles / poltinas that feature Ionna III is quite pricey, as it is probably the only time during the Imperial Russian era such a baby was featured on coins (even so, babies aren't common in recent Russian commemorative coins!)

And hence, the cheapest that doesn't feature Ioann's portrait is the denga, which I think is pretty difficult to find.

Here is one currently on auction at the moment:

Link

And now we shall compare to one that is currently offered by Alexsander Basok.



I think you can see the difference in the location of the number "4" as well as the sharpness of the letter "G" in denga.

Not too sure which is the rare variety, but I don't think I have come across a lot of 1741 dengas either, making it difficult to make a realistic idea of how uncommon they might be.

I know I don't have one.

Gxseries!

While the position of digits and images is important to distinguish between minor varieties, still I think that that the main die varieties are described by the form of the flower on rev. and eagle on obverse. In 1741 there were 3 main die varieties: 6 petal flower, 4 petal rosette and rosette without petals (see the example below on the foto of my coins). They say the form of this decoration element could definitely mean something (coining period, or crew or else) because many dengas and polushkas have this element reengraved. So I am affraid the coin on your image is difficult to attribute JUST by the position of "4" without knowing which is the flower.

Holy!

Many thanks for the infomation!

I have images of more than 40 different examples...enough to start comparing variations when I get a free minute Maybe somebody did this study already? Timofei?

Steve

I believe 40 will not be enough - this is just to feel the thrill

There was a basic catalog published by Mr. Evdokimov in Numizmaticheski Sbornik vol.15 (in Russian: Нумизматический сборник. Ч.15. Нумизматика на рубеже веков. (Труды ГИМ. Вып. 125). М., 2001. 440 с.: ил.). The catalog is the most complete thing done so far, though it contains main varieties only by eagle\flower. Bitkin and Diakov info about dengas and polushkas is nothing compared to it. But there are much more die varieties: such as 'apprentice' dies (cut by assistants to engravers, 'rouble-like' eagles cut apparently by silver coin engravers, and a great number of strange and interesting designs. I guess there is still big work to do.

I do not remember if that catalog was published or mentioned by JRNS, if not I can try to ask for the possibility from the author.

Timofei, thanks for the reference!


Agreed ! But we have to work with what we have ...


...unless somebody has done some work already, as in the case of Mr. Evdokimov

I may have that volume in my library. I'm gathering these books slowly but havent gone through them in detail yet. I'll check tonight.

I'll say at this point that, despite all the press it gets, the 1741 Denga is nothing when compared to the 1752 Denga. Now that date is scarce.

Steve