Okay looking for Catherine the Great coins issued in the 1780s with her mugshot on the obverse, what denominations are available (not copper)?


This is for my 1780s Enlightened monarchs social gathering club collection. Also known as the 'Wig Gallery'.

The denominations are called

In silver you have the following:

ruble, poltina (half ruble), polupoltinnik (quarter ruble), 20kopeek, 15 kopeek, grivennik (10 kopeek)

And in gold, 5 and 10 rubles. They are bloody scarce though.


What does the mugshot mean Aetheling...?

Roubles are usually most easily available, but they are often very worn since they were used for decades.

Generally it means photograph (mug = face).

I was hoping for VF/EF grade pieces, of course i figured they'd not be easily attainable and would be pricey.

Can you give me an idea at how much i'd be looking at, hundreds, thousands?

This rouble closed for €270 at the FNS auction here last month, it has been cleaned however.

I'm comfortable upto €500 and i could just live with a grade as low as that, only just though.

Then it's no problem at all

You might want to give Alexander Basok a try,

http://www.rustypennies.com

Or send him an email. He has hell lot of Russian coins stashed up so emailing him wouldn't hurt.

(the only thing... the prices do hurt a fair bit...)

I'll add it to my links, gonna have a browse round. I sse what you mean about the worn nature of the silver!