Bob, is your feeling that the 1826 old design is scarcer than the new? Your book shows both of them as "S".

I have kept my eye out for 1826 roubles since I bought mine, and it is very seldom one finds either design for that year, and, if one appears, it is usually circulated (which is also the case for the whole type). One would expect, from the listed mintages for this type, that 1828-31 would predominate, and that seems to be true, based on my experience with commercial and ebay sales.

For 1826, if one assumes that the "rate" of rouble production was constant, and one knows the approximate date of the cutover, it would seem that one would have an idea of the approximate proportion of one design to the other. I have read in some reference that the date Nicholas I approved the change to the spread wings design is known, but I can't remember which reference. From that date, one could draw a conclusion as to when the design was put into production, based on the typical cycle of design approval to design production, so possibly there is a way to get some idea of the relative mintages of 1826.

There are some flaws in this approach, however. Do we know whether targets were set by the coinage authorities for each yearly coinage, a fact which might affect the rate of production? Do we know if the mint, in full expectation of a design change, deliberately slowed the production of the old type 1826 at the beginning of the year, and therefore the bulk of that year's mintage would have consisted of the new type?

Is there a Russian "Walter Breen" who has done research at the mint archives?

Marv Finnley

I have always thought the the 1826s were more or less equal in rarity but this is merely a general observation
and not based on any kind of record keeping.

Generally speaking the amount of silver coinage depended upon the demand and the silver brought to
the Mint by mine owners and bullion dealers. In 1818, for example, rouble coinage was very heavy, probably
meaning that the Treasury bought silver on the open market. I doubt that any of the denominations was
struck on any kind of schedule.

Some work has been done in the Russian archives and published but I do not know of any large-scale work,
as was carried out by Breen in the U.S. material. Perhaps someone else on this forum has more up-date-information
on this point than I do.

RWJ