Okay, I know that this has nothing much to do with the "real" Russian coins that are discussed here, but I am going to ask, anyhow.

I am curious about the dates of the last Soviet series (1961-1991) minors.

According to Krause, the 15 kopek and 20 kopek pieces were minted in 1961,1962, and 1965-1991. In several years of browsing eBay, dealers' on-line pricelists, and collectors' trade lists, I have NEVER seen either a 15 or 20 kopek dated between 1965 and 1976. Do they exist? I assume there are mintsets for these years, but were they released for circulation??

It seems that they are somewhat scarce and hence reflects their prices for them.

While a 1961 and 62 15k and 20k is worth let's say 10 cents, the price shoots up to 10 dollars for some of them for the years that you listed! What seems difficult is the 1970 set as a 5k is set at 50 dollars and 15 is as high as 70! The question indeed is if such sets do exist.

Unfortunately I am not too sure either! All I know is that during the late 50's, this was the time of dispute in the design of Soviet trial coins. There were trial designs made in 1958, 59 and 61 but I am not too sure if that has any impact on mintage in 65-76. However if the designs did suceed, we would have to collect an additional 2, 3, 5 rubles!

Possibly, quite a fair bit of common coinage went into the 1961 set as well as the 1967 commemorative set of 50th Anniversary of the Great October Revolution, I believe.

It appears that they do exist. They are listed in the 1994 Rylov & Sobolin catalog (which I trust more than the Krause catalog), but are the only ones listed as carrying a numismatic premium over face value.

I don't know why this is the case, but your thought that they might only have been struck in mint sets seems reasonable.

Another possibility is that very few have left Russia for the West because of a perceived lack of interest. The bulk of the Russian market here is for Imperial issues, although there is also some interest in Soviet coins.

This got me curious so I went to check my coins that I have collected while there or from the small stash that I purchased last spring. I have nothing in that time period except for the commemorative year.

I just checked mine too. Nothing.

Seems like an awfully difficult region!

The best I could find is these:

2k: 66, 71, 72
5k: 61, 62, 74

Whatcha want for the 2k from 1966?? That is one of 3 of the 2k that I need (the other 2 I need are 76 & 77). It seems that the 1-10 were issued throughout this time frame (65-76), but the 15k and 20k are the ones that do not seem to be found, anywhere. Guess I need to get my matrix for these things updated, so I can have it handy to start watching for some to come available.

I have to congradulate you, Kuhli for your task in looking out for such coins!!! I did not quite bother to look out for such coins in the past. And I should... If I get a spare of the 66, I will just send it to you kuhli.

Another update, I have these as well but with awful sticky tape:

3k: 1961, 2k: 1971, 50k: 1964, 1r: 1964

DONE!!