I am assuming the early commemorative pieces were intended for general circualtion. Pieces like the 1965, 67, 70, and even the 1975 pieces all had very high mintages. Were all subsequent commemorative roubles intended to circulate or was there a shift towards 'collector' pieces? If there is a line to be drawn, where would it be?


Part of the re-organization of my collection deals with this. I want to keep general circulation commems with the normal issues, and seperate the 'collector' commems. I am inclined to draw the line myself at the 1975/1977, with the first being a general circulation and the second moving more towards a 'collector' focus. I am basing this basically on 1) published mintage figures and 2) the general wear I see on coins before that date and the lack of it on coins after that date.

I would welcome comments on this.
Thanks!

When I changed money, from inconvertible Rubles back to Dollars they gave the 5 Rubles commems in change for the difference. Until then I was under the impression that Soviet commems did not circulate.

I think I will push the date slightly further by perhaps at the beginning of 1980 Sisu - I believe I have seen a fair amount of the Olympics coins circulated except for coins minted in 1980.

Almost all were circulated. As soon as one was spent cashiers usually hoarded them for family members.
It's like the SBA and the Ike dollars. They circulated but then most were hoarded.

I remember asking in a store if they had metal Rubles...

Rusty

It was a funny thing, people would hoard the ruble denominated coins, hoping they would hold value if there was another currency call in like back in 1961, 1947 etc. One of the peculiarities of the Soviet era ruble was that they got called in, and new rubles issued occasionally when the government thought people were saving too many of them and they might be up to something the State thought was nefarious or capitalistic.

Ironically, why is it so much harder to find different years in 50 kopeks and 1 ruble? I mean seriously, I have been going through a fair amount of junk boxes but I found them to be a lot harder than typical 20, 15, 10 kopeks and the lower denomination coins!

I think the only collectible Rouble were the proof issues.

Visiting USSR in 1980, 1984 and 1987 I remember that I've found only ONE regular 1 rouble coin in change. All others were commems. Paper rouble was common, but often were and the big Lenin's head roubles or XX years from victory. I remember I've found and some Olympiad roubles.
About halves, if I remember correctly, these were mixed: regular 50 kopeks and the 50 years of October revolution in change.

Somewhere in all my junk I have a whole sandwich bag full of USSR coins that I saved when I got them in change. I never got rubles in change, or even saw them with the exception of the 5 Rubles commemorative coins. I have everything from 1 Kopek through the 20 Kopek coins, the earliest dates are 1962 or something similar, and the last 1991. The coin I have only a few of, because they were the only ones I used were the 2 Kopeks coins, and I only used those because that was the only coin that the payphones took, remember this was USSR and nothing advanced like accepting multiple types of coins in payphone, let alone make change.

Agree with HuliganRS on the issue - many many were found in circulation back in the days! (except for 1992 Barcelona that never went in cause it was too late!). My grandmother, never a collector, taught me a valuable lesson - to go to a central Bank and ask! Amazingly it worked just fine with occasional candies to bank tellers. Collection was later stolen by young burglars from my apartment...
Anyway, I just got it all back for 1700 RUR on molotok.ru, similar set (all 64 commemorative roubles of USSR) was just sold on Ebay for $182.

Also, keep in mind that coin collecting was a luxury item - a NO NO by Soviet standards!

Do you ever wonder if you bought your old set back?




Yes indeed, people collected, I know girl from Khabarovsk that collected coins back then that her Grandfather saved her from countries he visited. She wouldn't ever say why he traveled so much during Soviet times, but one can only imagine.

I still have my old Rouble and World coin collection in the original folder from the former Soviet Union. They are mostly well circulated examples that my father and I collected.

When I go to their house, I'll snap some photo's for the forum to see...

I am somewhat confused about the status of collecting in Soviet times. Private coin collecting was discouraged, yet there were periodicals like "Soviet Collector" that I have heard about (but never seen).

If private coin collecting was prohibited, then why would publications seemingly devoted to collecting be permitted?

Thanks for any help you might offer.

Most people collected foreign coins from what I remember. It was also possible to get your hands on Czarist coins and paper money if you knew who to ask

Gold fillings and teeth are mostly Czarist gold 5/10 Rouble coins. It's not like you could go and buy a few grams of gold for your teeth!!!

Coin collecting in USSR was like you had to know someone, and kept it a secret. It was like owning gold in the USA during the time of 1933-1975, quite a few people did secretly but nobody said anything about it. The same way that people in the USA own 1964 Peace Dollars, and 1974 Aluminium cents.

As noted previously I had people offer to sell me Imperials(chervonetz) on the streets, but I was never trusting enough to buy them.

I have nothing to add to this topic.
but i feel i have to mention it......

I liked the old Scottishmoney avatar better.

thats all.

How many do you want?

Thank you, will you take Konstantin Ruble of 1825 in trade, I have one