Here is a site that I started to visit, yes a Chinese coin forum site, which funny enough started it's threads on Russian coins after I started posting a few posts about Russian coins

Nevertheless, here is the link:

http://www.51coins.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp?boa...1821&page=1

Are there only about 200 of these around? Funny enough, I don't see many of Nikolai II 25 kopeks around.

There were only 150 made (reported). All proof, supposedly. I wonder how many still remain... Very rare and interesting coin. For some reason that webpage is not loading on my PC Is it listed for sale by any chance?

BKB, I don't know why it's not working for you. Maybe the connection from China to US is still severed due to the Taiwan earthquake case.

Here are the urls to the pics - didn't want to hotlink them:

http://www.51coins.com/bbs/UploadFile/2007...21495212716.jpg

http://www.51coins.com/bbs/UploadFile/2007...72150910678.jpg

Does look proofish to me. The thread does not mention anything about sales - just showing a list of coins that they have there.

I have no problem loading the page.

Reading it, however, is another matter.

Thank you for those links. Looks ok to me. I wonder who is the lucky owner... I would love to get something as rare as this coin.

The St. Petersburg Mint issued proof sets on an annual basis but in 1901 sets were issued for both Felix Zaleman and Alexander Redko. It is not known with certainty which set contained the 25 kopecks, but the B.F. Kopylov sale of the G.G. Blank collection (page 28, lot 475) on April 27, 1908, puts this coin in the Zaleman set. The 1901 25 kopecks was not struck for circulation and it is thought that all existing coins came from the proof sets. (Blank made a very strong effort to acquire silver and copper coins in both proof and uncirculated but there was no uncirculated 1901 25 kopecks in this sale.)

The Imperial Mint never reported proof figures in their annual reports so any numbers are speculative. It is for this reason, for example, that the 1903 50 kopecks is much more common than the official mint report of 19 pieces would indicate.

RWJ

I'll translate and ask any questions there if you like. As what I can tell, what the user has mentioned is "Legendary 1901 25 kopeks - just shook my eyes". No idea if this is indeed his although I'll ask.

Thank you, gx. That is a very generous offer.

Is there a special Russian forum on the site (like here), or are the threads about Russian coins mixed in with threads about other non-Russian issues? If there is a Russian forum, can you provide a direct link to the forum itself?

Once there, a Simplified Chinese---->English translation through google will probably be all I need. I tried clicking some links, but they took me to pages with Chinese buttons which are not translated (I think because they are images, not text).

Thanks!

Unfortunately no. The threads are under "foreign coins", making it a bit harder to search. You might want to hit Ctrl+F and copy this: " 俄 ", which is just "RUS" if you like. Google translation might work although I know it's not terribly good when it comes down to translating Asian to Western languages.

There is someone else in there who is a non-Chinese writer and posts some nice Nikolai gold coins.

There is one for sale at Heritage and I'm pretty sure its the same coin.
Link below:

http://cgi.liveauctions.ebay.com/52833-Nic...sspagenameZWDVW