While Peter I portrait remains relatively unchanged during his era, the near end of his coinage saw two radical changes, that is, with the dating of the years have changed from cyrillic to numerical as well as the reverse design of his coinage. While most of his earlier coinages feature a double head eagle, this is a rather abstract version to celebrate his first initial "P"



This is not featured again till the mad man Pavel I decides to do some radical change to his coinage. Interestingly, both men's first name had to be both "P" and feature pretty similar idea, 4 "P" all adjacent to each other at 90 degrees, except Peter I's design had the 4 "P" interlocked at the top of the word.

Edge type is an extrusive text of the following:
"РОССИЙСКИЙ РУБЛЬ МОСКОВСКОГО ДВОРА"
(Russian ruble of the Moscow Mint)

What do you mean by that?

The Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet "P" looks like the Greek letter "Pi".

So "Petr" = Петр in Russian. The design on the reverse of the coin shown consists of 4 interlocking Cyrillic "P"s as Petr's initial formimg cross-like monogram. The "I"s between the "P"s are for "the First" ("Peter I").

TO set a record straight, on 1707, 1710, 1712, 1714 Arabic numerals were used to date the coins. Thereafter, even on the coins with cyrillic date the edge of the coin often dated the coin in Arabic numerals. Thus is was not a new change, but simply a return to the old ways...

I would add another picture of 1724 ruble, but I received this message:

The requested file upload failed because suitable permissions have not been enabled on the 'uploads' directory. Please contact the board administrator and inform them of this error.

Does anyone know the meaning of this?

Excellent point indeed BKB. I agree with the above years that some coins were inscribed in arabic years instead of cyrillic years. But I disagree with the point that the earlier rubles had smooth edges and it was only in 1718 that the switch was made on edging technology, and this is an example of such:



I really don't agree that arabic numbers are "old ways" but must insist that they are pretty new at that time. Older Peter I coins and such were minted in cyrillic dating.

My point is to say that in the prior years, cyrillic dating was often denoted and this series was the start of arabic dating in regular coinage. In my opinion, the others are just basically one year type coins and they aren't really "regular" coins.

About the account issue, I really recommand you to register an account at omnicoin.com, and that way, you can show your coin pictures to anyone. Or alternatively, you can register at imageshack.us and upload your pictures there

years of Peter I rubles regular issue:

Plain edge + cyrillic date: 1704, 1705, some 1707

Plain edge + Arabic date: some 1707, ALL 1710, 1712, 1714/3, 1714

Lettered edge mixed dates (Cyrillic date on averse + arabic date on edge of some): 1718, 1719, 1720, 1721.

Lettered edge (with some exceptions of overstrikes on European tallers for SPB sun rubles) + arabic date on averse: 1724, 1725.

That said, when you speak about earlier coins? The earlier coins with smooth edge are only 1704 -- 1714. But of those coins only about 50% had cyrillic date.

Then production stopped for 3 years. And then, in 1718 you see mixed dates: Cyrillic on averse and Arabic on edge. Your edge is a good example.

Thus, when I said "returning to old ways" I ment returning to cyrillic date of 1710 -- 1714.

P.S. 1712 were regular circulation coins, but people did not like them, because composition of silver used was changed. That is why the production of 1713 was never commence while there is evidence of existence of 1713 rouble die, and the production of 1714 also did not take off.

Good points indeed, but I am not too sure about the 50% figure. It seems like an awful amount and I don't remember seeing that many early Peter I rubles in arabic dating.

Putting the rubles aside, almost all of Peter I's copper coins were struck in cyrillic dating except some of the rarest copper trial coins as well as the 1724 copper coins.

My belief is that Peter I tried to modernize Russia for proper trading with the Europeans. And for that, Russian coinages have to be modernized, instead of the wire kopeks that existed during his era. Smart thing Peter I did is to copy almost all elements of European coinage designs, but the dating must have fallen behind with the older cyrillic system, which I believe, pretty much died in 1720s. The short ~20 years span is indeed interesting, but painfully expensive to collect.

Now you are talking

Copper coinage of Peter makes a much better illistration for your point. Especially polushkas that went cyrillic around 1718. With kopeks, you can point to a pattern of 1724. With dengas -- those never went cyrillic. However, 5 kop was cyrillic from the get-go in 1723 (some say 1721 but it is too controversial). You may also want to look into smaller silver denominations which show a sharper change to arabic around 1712.

As to collecting -- if you do not care about condition, it is still possible even today.

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