BKB

+1

Is this some form of unregulated illegal gambling?

It all depends if the prospective bidders check the edge of this "pattern/novodel" against the edges of the original 66 and 67. I think this will definitely kill the whole notion of the pattern. May also kill the idea of the novodel, because it would be strange to cut such a similar edging instrument for novodel production. Only thing that comes to mind is the Sestroretsk ruble, but, this thing is nowhere nearly as important a coin. Other than that, $25K :-)

I do not like it, and I am not going to bid on it.

I am no specialist.

I mostly enjoyed the last paragraph of his article. :-)

that was real... While I do not see anything wrong in posting a photo of the page of the book one bought, especially with accurate attribution, not for financial gain but in furtherance of a pseudo-scientific (in this instance) discussion, I have no urge to help someone who is blatantly rude... Not that you need to see a publication of this mickeymouse to know that it is not even a fake, but a piece of crap. If your friend been collecting coins till 77, he, at this stage in his life and having any numismatic library, should be able to see that this thing was never inside any official mint.

This was made some time between 1974 and 2014 :-)

very nice coin.

Would be interesting to see the higher condition stuff

Where is the coin?

GX, which one you are talking about? EM-FX or EM-IK?

What is the question?

Listings and sales look fishy...

some 500 years age ppl knew for sure the Earth was flat... :-) Let us put it this way -- I am fairly certain that a lot of those coins came from Sodermann's collection.

one-kuna here should be able to answer that question, if he wants to bother :-)

"Sincona" collection is allegedly the remnants of Sodermann collection. A lot was sold in the Sodemann sales (USB #6(gold), Hess #39, etc. Where did these nice Sincona things come from, I do not know. What I did notice, however, was the fact that not all coins posed as from that "Sincona" collection, actually belonged to that collection... I am not sure what you mean, when you use the term "unique". To me, it is if only 1 coin is known to us. Like, 1743 horseman kopek, or 1755 large head portrait kopek... I personally liked the Fuchs collection for variety, the Hasselgesser for rarity in amazing condition, Goodman for exceptional proofs, Brekke for completeness of the copper run, Tolstoi for rarity, wonderful patterns and some beautiful coppers, Hermes for hidden rarities, Bakken and Kruse for insane fakes :-)... You get the idea :-) I do not think the value of the collection lies in the number of coins. Every serious collection has something that makes it exciting. Whenever someone asks me how many coins I have in my collection, I just smile. However, maybe this question is more valid than I thought....

I still do not understand what you are looking for. Do you take condition into account, or VF or rotten dug up coins are fine? There is plenty of ppl that collect date sets of circulated coins. Some, like Hasselgesser, collected super condition. He put together a very nice collection, but, due to his condition requirements he ran into lots of novodels. Anyway, until there is a public sale of a collection, you will never know, because collectors generally do not want to advertise... A few years back I bought a similar collection to what you are looking for, but it was 1917 -- 1991. A complete date/mm set with a few rarities among all the other crap. I am sure similar exists for the Empire. For me, personally, this type of collection would be completely meaningless. For example: out of the whole copper run of 1830 -- 1839, I would be happy with a complete 1830, 2 kop 1831 em and 1 kop 1838 em. That would make it complete for me. The rest I simply do not care enough about... Are there ppl that collect a date set Nicholas II coins? -- sure. But, I do not know them... I am more interested in collectors that collect certain specialties in depth. Like late Mr. Polujko, who collected the rubles of Anna and created a complete system for die classification. Sorry, cannot help.

A benchmark for what? You think you are up to the task? LOL Elisabeth 20 ruble, and some nice unique Peter ducats would be a good start. I do not think it is possible to collect a complete date/mm set of all russian coins. There are some uniques that are in museums and various private collections...

Not only the list of coins he was missing. Some coins he just did not know about, like 1789 MM 1 kopek.

Why do you ask? Tolstoy had coins GM did not. Blank collection was fairly comprehensive. Zubov had a huge collection. Vergil Brand, however, would get my vote on the completeness of the collection. The guy just bought up everything at the time it did not cost too much. Someone should get a copy of his ledgers from the tax court case file. I think the file is in New York.

Even GM did not have "every coin of every date..."

Tolstoy, Gutten-Chapski, Sodermann... too many to list.

LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT... well, you get the idea :-) Congrats on a very very sexy 1771 valak :-)

These came to our town in Ukraine around 92. All kinds. Some of these, some 1725 5 cop, or about... Better quality than this. Disappeared very quickly.