In 1916, Russia decided to order coins from Japan, that is the Osaka mint. Of why Osaka, I have no idea except to believe that the usual Western mints, such as France and Belgium were at war and could not supply Russia with any coinages.

Osaka mint provided Russia with only two denominations, that is 10 and 15 kopeks. Such coins can be told easily as they do not have any mintmark initials.

These coins are some examples of mine:

10 kopeks:


15 kopeks:



I somewhat believe that my last coin is either a proof or a proof-like coin, but probably ruined with a bit of pvc and hence cloudy. Either ways, the striking methods of both the 15 kopeks that I have seem to differ.

I am not too sure if there are supposed to be proof coins from the Osaka mint but I would not be too suprised if there were.

One of the fascinating things about the Osaka minted coins is that Russia ordered them from a country which it had been at war with 12 years earlier, and even to this day there is a bit of a tension betwixt Russia and Japan stemming from territorial claims in the Sakhalin Islands and Kurile Islands chains which changed hands again during WWII.

Yes, as you note since they could not get the coins from Brussels, London, or Paris, it must have been desperation.