I have recently been looking at Russian (in particular USSR/CCCP) coins on both the world coin gallery & GX Series' Omnicoin collection and have to say how much I like these coins and that I am now interested in collecting them (along with my British Empire/Commonwealth coins).

I was just wondering if there are any tips anyone can give in regards to cllecting these coins, what to look out for & how much I should pay for coins in particular

Any help greatly appreciated

Thanks Johnny - glad my collection is worth a bit of mentioning

Trust me, it wasn't fun trying to collect the whole Soviet commemorative set - I'm not going to bother trying to upgrade the set to proof,unc set as that will be way too costly. The basic minimum that I paid for is perhaps closer to 70USD ish, which is quite unrealistic these days, thanks to the mad market.

This is one catalogue that I personally recommand for Soviet commemorative coins (there is no price catalogue unlike what the title says) : http://cgi.ebay.com/RUSSIAN-MEMORIAL-COINS...oQQcmdZViewItem

Alternatively you can check out the free link here, except it has only ni-cupro commemorative coins: (slow but it works) http://shiraliv.narod.ru/

Thing is, prices on ebay are starting to go a bit mad and to add the fact that shipping prices are going a bit too high, you might want to give a check with your dealer junk coin lot first. The easiest to find should be the pre 1970s commemorative coins as these were minted in terms of millions. I actually bought most of my Soviet coins back in Moscow at a very reasonable price.

There is one crucial difference between a normal coin and a novodel, i.e. a restrike and prices do differ on them. Do check them out carefully and you might end up finding some bizarre error like this one:



Year is supposed to be 1985 to commemorate the 100th death anniversary of Fedrick Engels but for some reason, this novodel was coupled with dies from 1983 and messed up.

Good luck!

Thanks for the info & weblinks

I have just one question though, how comes the CCCP symbol (and later Russian Bank symbol) appear as the reverse as opposed to the Obverse?