If you read my logs frequently and remember all of them, I have asked about some unusual Russian overstriked coins on foreign coins.

Here is the link if you don't know where it is. Link

And here is a pretty difficult ruble, Peter I, to obtain in reasonable prices, (with a loop but fortunately, not major damages)

Auction link

Although I can't really tell what the underlying image is, it could be the pretty scarce "Dutch-Spanish Luxemborg" coin as the underlying image. I simply can't afford it right now, so I would rather see someone here who can keep it...

Here is a 5 kopeck struck over a 10 kopeck starting at €35. The auction is tomorrow, but I have to be at work.

http://www.snynumis.fi/huutokaupat/hk358/images/358133.jpg


I did send in a few write-in bids though, but not on this item.

I am betting it will end up around 50-70 euros. It is starting to be difficult to find such overstriked coins.

It went for €90.

Ouch... 90 is unusually high for THAT grade...

True, but it's also an unusually attractive example of Paul's re-overstriking program.

With many coins, what looks expensive today often looks cheap tomorrow. This has been particularly true of Russian coins in recent years. That could always change, of course, but I wouldn't bet very much that it will in the near future.

Perhaps it is true that prices will keep on raising, but I fear that it has been going at a ridicious rate. Maybe a similar event to the US coin market crash might occur. What is shocking me is that Russians are buying back coins at almost whatever price is it going at, sometimes even what I consider as awful grade coins are sold without any problems. While most examples of Imperial Russian coinages will raise without a doubt, sometimes even typical Soviet or current Russian examples have been going a bit too much in my opinion.

But again, what can you expect from a country that has over a millenium years worth of experience in coinage?

You could easily be right and a slowdown in the market might be on the way.

On the other hand, there is a lot of money in Russia right now and maybe people there would rather buy back their own heritage and art treasures instead of holding onto rapidly depreciating paper dollars.

It might also be that Russian coins have been dramatically underpriced since the rise of the Soviet Union and are only now catching up to where they would have been all along if Soviet citizens had been free to buy in the West.

What would coins of similar rarity and importance from France, Germany, Britain, the US or other countries bring if sold? From that perspective, maybe Russian coins are simply reaching realistic price levels that they would have had all along under a truly free market.

Time will tell.