sigistenz

I inspected the picture closely, too. IMHO it is not quite the rare later eagle (Bitkin295) but rather a variant of the common eagle (Bitkin 294) or something inbetween. The eagle's tail looks like that of the later eagle, but the crown seems to be of the larger size of the 1803 type. I would greatly appreciate other peoples' opinions on this. Was the coin the rare variant or not? Thank you, Sigi -

Very nice Congratulations. But isn't it over 1798? Sigi -

The inscription reads APrenzlau 1.December 1899 Prenzlau sounds pretty German. There is a town near Berlin by that name and Prenzlau exists also as a German surname. December was the German spelling in 1899 (it since has become Dezember). The dot following the 1 is the German way to write the date. The item is located in Lithuania. Many Germans (or their descendants) then lived in Russia and especially in the Baltic region of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania which then belonged to Russia. Russian coins circulated there. And that explains IMHO a German graffito on a tsarist rouble. Sigi -

As 1976 is suspected to have been the host coin it would be helpful to compare it. Could anyone contribute a picture of a well preserved 1976? Sigi

Yes

Hi, literature says that these were minted in Ekaterinburg and Sestrorezk. Bitkin lists each of the 2 mints and uses exactly the same picture for each of them. I don't read Russian and have no access to Russian literature or forums. Have there been attempts to distinguish the two? There are, however distinct variants, take alone the style of the 5 in the date. All my Catherine II Sestrorezk 5kop coins (1763,1764,1765,1766) have wide netting on the edge, different from EM's narrow netting. Are there 1758-- 5 kop with wide netting and could that indicate the CM mint? See my coin below. From one reason or another it has an old plug at the right of the 58, and on the eagle side correspondingly at the left of the scepter. Has anyone an explanation for that? Thank you everybody for your comments to come. Sigi By sigistenz