Yesterday picked up this coin for 100$ at my local dealer store:) What do you think is the value of this coin in such great condition?

Welcome to CoinPeople, orest!

I have seen Romanov roubles in similar condition sell for around $150 on eBay recently. Although yours has a lot of detail, there is a rather large scratch on the obverse; the reverse seems to have more luster than the obverse, but this is normal for most coins (I really don't know why, though). It's hard to say whether or not $100 is a bargain without seeing better pictures. But the important thing is -- you like the coin! Then it doesn't really matter if you pay a little more for it than somewhere else.

Did you know that there are two obverse die varieties for this series?

thank you for welcoming and grading my coin! Yes i know that there is 2 types, and indeed the one that i have as far as i know 65000 coins were produced, and the other type over 1 million coins. I am new in collecting coins and in fact that is my 4th russian coin:)

Welcome, orest.

If I am not mistaken, the coin you are showing is the high relief or embossed striking, which is the more frequently seen variety.

Bob, I know that you wrote an article about this coin. Could you tell us where to find it and how to access it?
Thanks.

Actually, this one is the embossed strike which is the more common one. Severin, or maybe the Russian mint report for that year, got the numbers backwards. Most references give the figures as 50,000 (not 65,000) for the flat strikes, and about 1.5 million for the embossed strike.

However, I recently wrote an article about these in the "Journal of the Russian Numismatic Society" (Oct. 2007) after doing a statistical survey of these two types in online auctions (not just eBay) over a six-month period. The actual distribution suggests that there were more like 500,000 flat strikes and only 1,000,000 embossed strikes produced. This has not been independently confirmed; however, experience shows that there are just far too many flat strikes of the Romanov rouble to have such low mintage numbers as all the references state.

You can compare the difference in the two types here:
http://hairgrove-goldberg.com/Gallery/russia-commem-1913 (pages have been opening a little slow lately; sorry).
These are the same images which were used in the article.

Hi, Maya! Looks like our posts crossed ... maybe you can order this as a back issue from the RNS? http://www.russiannumismaticsociety.org/

Cheers!

Forgive me if I am wrong, but according to catalogue that i have, this

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Russia-1913-Rouble-Rubl...1QQcmdZViewItem

is the example of more frequently seen variety

That's correct ... it is the same as the coin you showed us.

yes, now i see the difference:) I thought it's a different coin.

You can probably sell it for around $150 on ebay right now, prices on these common coins went up a lot in last couple of months for some reason. You could of bought the same coin on ebay for $70 just 4 months ago

This price trend is quite amazing, it's interesting it it will continiue. Your opinion?

An economist named Herbert Stein once famously observed that "Anything that cannot go on forever will stop".

The only question is when it will stop.

I predicted that Russian coins were due for price drops in 2001 because I thought prices had gone too high, too fast.

It is now 2008 and it hasn't happened yet.

I have stopped making such predictions.

I think higher grade coins will still be appreciating in price, but I don't think people will be paying a lot of money for low grade / cleaned / common Russian coins. There are some people who right now, who are buying everything Russian -pre 1941 and don't care about condition, this will likely stop pretty soon.