STEVE MOULDING

It's possible in *any* auction. The older Gorny sales certainly had some coins which were clearly 'questionable'.

Hess 160 - May 5th 1919, if I'm not mistaken. Sammlung von Russischen Münzen aus altem Bestize. Very scarce catalog Can't comment on whether the Yefimok is present, but if it is Hess 1919, then this is likely the sale.

(it is a nice photo though)

ex..you may be right. Without looking at your solution, I printed out and overlaid the reverse (eagles) from your coin and an obverse (cipher) from an actual 10K and overlaid them. (I did this because I think I see a Cipher arc + a raised outer circle). I actually found 3 possible rotations where the possible two features (cipher arc +small circle) on your coin lined up almost exactly with those in the 10K image. However, in one of these 3 possible alignments, the cipher-side crown also appears to match what I see on your coin. This alignment is indeed the one you show, so I think we independently arrived at the same rotation. Now I know the rotation angle I'll check the other side to see if anything lines up there. There may be hope

Tolstoi (1913) is now online, thanks to the good folks at Heidelberg University http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/hess_nachf1913_03_10

A genuine one might. Hope you're not suggesting anything about this floater

Yes, for this series originals of the 1803EM, 1804EM, 1805EM, 1808EM and 1810EM are all known.

It's supposed to be an 1805EM (Ekaterinburg) Polushka (1/4 Kopeck) of Alexander I. Those should be in Krause (if that is indeed what SCWC means). They're quite scarce but not too difficult to find. Looks fake to me.

It certainly looks similar. I recall the defect was larger in the coin image I saw, so the die was likely deteriorating. I also know the image I saw was not from Wolmar as I've never collected Wolmar images, so yours is likely a different coin. I need to find my image again and do some photoshop overlays to confirm it's the same die.

Another They're not very common (maybe 1 in 50)

I've seen others. For example:

It's almost certainly 1810. You're right, there are no known dates with that degree of separation - BUT - it's not really what you think it is. Comparing to other coins from the same die (look for the same relative placement of letters/numbers to each other and the eagles). It is 1810....the digits are normally separated. However, the second '1' is mostly lost in the big planchet defect you see. What you think is the top of a '1' as actually a die defect which can be seen on other 1810 examples from the same die. It's all a coincidence.

There was a lot going on in the Russian mints during 1810-11 I'm not sure Kleiner and Stupitsin necessarily had to 'co-exist'....see my earier reply for why you might see ПС/MK. To make the story much more complicated, the Izhora Mint (Kolpino) - near St. Petersburg - also shows coins with ПС and MK mintmasters. Did they split their time acorss the mints? I don't know. We also find the well known recut mintmark IM / CPB. St Petersburg may well have been supplying Izhora with dies during 1810-1811. There's a good thread here all about it http://www.coinpeople.com/index.php/topic/22308-1811-2k-overstruck-mintmark/ Mr one-kuna may have the correct story, as this period around 1810 is of special interest to him

1810 СПБ ПС is reasonably common? Lol. It's not at all in my experience. What is your source for that conclusion? You may be right but it doesn't fit with what I've seen. At the time I did my Alexander I Copper research paper, I saw 4 of them. All quite expensive. By contrast, I saw about 110 1811 СПБ ПС. The 1811 СПБ MK is a little scarcer - I saw about 75 of those. Why would you not expect the mintmaster reengraving? Also, I don't have the date Kleiner --> Stupitsin and couldn't find anything in the Mikhailovich corpus. That date would be interesting.

Checking images of over two hundred 1811 СПБ 2 Kopecks, the only obvious overdates I see are for those with Mikhail Kleiner as mintmaster (MK). I don't see any obvious 1/0 overdates on the more common 1811 СПБ ПС (Pavel Stupitsin) coins. This makes sense if Kleiner (MK) preceded Stupitsin (ПС) as mintmaster, and handed over control sometime in 1811. Coins with both mintmaster marks are found for 1811. Some of the coins minted under MK in early 1811 could have been produced with 1810 dies that were still in good shape and then overdated. For existing 1811 СПБ MK dies (both overdated and new) - ПС, once he took over, could [a] continue to use them in 1811 abandon them and create new 1811 dies with the ПС mark or [c] recut MK-->ПС. I don't recall if MK->ПС is known on 1811 СПБ 2 Kopecks (a quick check of 125 images didn't show any), but if so the variants we could see include: 1811 MK 1811 ПС 1811 ПС/MK 1811/0 MK 1811/0 ПС/MK Additionally, there are very rare 1810 СПБ ПС 2 Kopeck coins (rarer than Bitkin's R1 rating). I don't currently know why these exist. Possibly the mintmaster change happened at the very end of 1810, just enough time for new 1810 СПБ ПС dies, even though 1811 MK dies may have already been prepared. In that case though, I would expect at least some 1811/0 ПС coins to be seen. It's an interesting topic for further research though perhaps someone has the answers already.

Another example, though I think yours is much better.

These are what I overlaid: The cloud edge alignment (up/left of the horse's tail) looks spot on after a little extra nudging and micro-rotation of layers in the combined image. It may be possible there is some other alignment - perhaps from the other side - that would look OK too, but this looks pretty convincing and for a start shows the almost certain presence of the underlying baroque kopeck.

The Baroque is there. Most easily seen on the reverse. Above/Left of the horse tail is the edge of the lower-right baroque cloud. I overlaid with a baroque image in photostudio and the alignment is perfect. Basically take the Baroque obverse, rotate clockwise 135 degrees and overlay on the ex reverse.

I got this yesterday in the RNS mailbox: if anybody can help this gentleman please send me a PM and I'll pass on his contact information. My name is (.....) and I am conducting a research project on the 1876, 1886, 1895, and 1896 State Bank Metal Deposit Receipts. These extremely elusive notes are clearly not often available (except maybe the 1895 issue) and I cannot find any details about these notes or images of any of the 1876, 1886, or 1896 notes. I was wondering if you might be able to reference a collector or numismatist who can help me with information about these series of notes. In particular, I am interested in the reasons that these notes were conceived, the circumstances surrounding their printing but not issuance, and photos of each series' notes, both front and reverse. Thank you in advance for any information that you can provide. Thanks

The seven is the wrong shape for a 1907. So unlikely to be 1907-->1917. If it is altered, my money would be on a 191* --> 1917

Genuine - yes. Rare - no. This is the more common of the two mint-masters seen for 1773. Price seems good - ones in worse condition than this sell on ebay for $60-$75. Maybe $120-$150 for this condition? The silver mavens can tell you better

OK...they're all in a single 19MB zip file http://rnumis.com/downloads/1799/CM-MB.zip File names are usually of the form 1799CM-<auction house/auction>-<date>-<lot/side>-<sale price>.jpg For example: 1799CM-ADA01-200509-38a-1600USD.jpg means ADA (Alexander House) - Auction 01 - Sep 2005 - Lot 38/Obverse - 1600USD The auction house codes are ADA - Alexander AU - Aurea CN - Conros Weekly CNM - Conros Monthly GLDB - Goldberg GM - Gorny & Mosch HTG- Heritage KNK _ Kunker MISC - Unknown NGSA - NGSA NK - Niko NU - MiM TH - Thomas Hoiland WAG - WAG WSW - Warsaw WW - World Wide Have fun

No problem. I have images of 104 coins from auctions, but I think many duplicates (same coin at different auctions). I haven't counted the die pairs and unfortunately do not have time to do so. If anybody wants to do the research, I can drop the whole set of images off at rnumis and you can copy them from there. Steve

The NIKO 2 coin (April 2008), Lot 130, 4000USD looks to be the same die pair. It was resold in NIKO 3 (October 2008), Lot 177, for 2700USD so maybe somebody didn't like it? Exactly the same coin then appeared at Kuenker153 (March 2009), Lot 2670, where the price dropped again...1750USD

Amigh