This auction catalogue hasn't yet been made available online. However, I received the printed catalogue just before Christmas.

This particular lot offers a 1913 commemorative Romanov rouble struck in bronze, but silver-plated! The estimate is CHF 80 -- which I would say is probably about 20 times its real value, unless there is something I don't know about. None of the sources available to me list this as a genuine trial or pattern coin. Indeed, if it were, why give it a coating of silver?

Does anyone else have an idea why this could be anything other than a deceptive counterfeit? (The silver plating has worn off a bit in the meantime...).

Maybe it is a medal wrong described as a coin. I saw some medals 300 years Romanov dinasty in bronze, but if i remember correctly they were smaller in diameter. And none silver platted anyway...

I am intrigued. Medals are different from the coinage design so it can't be possible. Off metal? Not something I really know of... does the catalogue have a picture of that?

Here is something I bought on Ebay long time ago for $5.

The word "РУБЛЬ" is there at the top on the reverse side, so it wasn't struck as a medal. The catalogue gives the weight at 20.07g, so it is probably about the same size of the original coin (maybe thicker or thinner, I don't know what the relative density of bronze to silver would be).

I would say that it is probably either a contemporary counterfeit or else a cheap modern souvenir coin. I am surprised that the catalogue does not qualify it like this (somehow) except to say that it is silver-plated bronze. Are we supposed to think that this was an official issue?? Surely it is not, IMHO.