Jump to content
CoinPeople.com

marv

Members
  • Posts

    246
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by marv

  1. Yes thanks. I had forgotten. I thought it pretty funny at the time (my Russian classes were almost 50 years ago)!
  2. That's great. Reminds me of the joke about the two main Soviet papers, Izvestia (The News) and Pravda (The Truth). In my Russian class I learned: In "The News" there is no news, and in "The Truth" there is no truth (in Russian of course).
  3. To the left of the word "основан" on the reverse, there is a very small plaque. Under a microscope, it contains two logos that are too diffuse to see under high magnification. Below the logos are the following: Ag 925 33.63г So this means it contains exactly one troy ounce of pure silver or 33.63 grams of .925 silver. The edge is absolutely perfectly finely vertically reeded - there is no edge marking. The two logos would probably tell who designed it, but they are not sharp enough under a microscope to make out. The frosting of the silver is too apparent and obliterates the logo design since it's so small.
  4. I took Russian for two years in college and became fairly good at it. I also had a total of seven years of German between high school and college. So I know that Russian grammar is much more difficult than English and considerably more difficult than German in which I am almost fluent. I don't know any Hindu. Thank you for answering as I know the subtleties of grammar in Russian can be hard to decipher for us non-native speakers. It's always interesting to me that most Americans that I encounter think that the Russian alphabet is the most difficult part of learning Russian. They're always surprised when I tell them that, for me at least, the alphabet was the easiest thing about learning Russian.
  5. In the US, the media report most types of protests including anti-(US) government, anti-anything. One can run out in the street or stand in front of the White House and yell nasty things about Obama without getting arrested. They will only risk arrest if they threaten to harm the President physically, but other than that, one can say just about anything about the government or the President (including calling him a thief) and not risk arrest. It's called freedom of speech. I wonder what happens in Russia if one repeats the slogan on the coin in public, shouts it out in the street? Will the Russian media publish that?
  6. I understand that you're saying that if one doesn't pass the coin along, i.e., use it to buy something (distribute it as you say), then you're not guilty under Russian law. So a collector who merely holds it in a collection is not a criminal. But don't you, as a Russian citizen, have a duty to report this (an illegal activity) to the police and turn over the coin as evidence? And if you don't do that because you want to keep the coin in your collection, aren't you possibly guilty of a crime? In the US, we're supposed to report any counterfeit money to the US Secret Service who will most likely confiscate it as evidence. I'm not sure about mutilated money.
  7. I am surprised to hear that defacing or mutilating money is not a crime in the Russian Federation. I just assumed that most countries had rules against that since the US does. I would venture to guess that the logic behind the criminalization of mutilation is the difficulty it then causes for people to judge whether the money is counterfeit or not and would render the coin unfit for its intended use as legal tender. I'm no legal expert however.
  8. Coins were originally used as hosts for political messages, where the city or the ruler could boast of their accomplishments. The fact that coins were used as a medium of exchange only enhanced their attraction as political statements to the powers that be. So in that respect, a political message on a coin is nothing new. However, governments these days frown on someone else's political message on government coins. In the US, defacing or mutilating coins or paper money is a crime, and I imagine that it's a (more) serious crime in the RF especially when the message is against someone like Putin. I would guess that collecting these in the RF would be a bit dangerous for the collector.
  9. It says "Putin thief" Not too subtle.
  10. I keep trying to upload a file to my album in the gallery. It's a jpg about 100kb. The gallery tells me that I have about 1mb left, so I would think there would be no problem. However when I try to upload, I get a message that I am not permitted to upload any additional files. I can create a new album and upload the file, but I can't upload it to my existing album. Is there a maximum number of files per album, even if there is room for more data?
  11. I sent the question to the mint's informational email address ( info@mintspb.ru ). I'll let you know what I find out. It seems that someone would be documenting the 300th anniversary mint products. The other thing that is of interest is that the grammatical ending of "St. Petersburg" on the medal is an "oo" = "У". Is that genitive case, i.e., possessive (300 years "of" St. Petersburg)? If I type that into Google translate, it terminates with an "a" not a "y". I assume that the Russians know the correct ending and that either I have used the wrong English or that Google translate has used the wrong ending for the Russian equivalent.
  12. This is a medal commemorating the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great. Cost me 2500 roubles. I was looking for some information about it: number minted, designer, silver content, etc. I've attached the pictures. I believe there were a whole series of medals issued by the mint about the anniversary of the city. Thanks for the help.
  13. When I was in St. P. last year, I went, of course, to the Peter and Paul Fortress. For me, a big draw was the mint which was there as big as life. Very unassuming building. I found the little store off to the side of the courtyard. Very few people seemed to care about the mint or the store. I went inside the store and looked at their offerings. I was looking for Peter the Great memorabilia that I could afford, and I found this medal that memorialized the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. P. that occurred in 2003. I don't have a book on Russian medals, and I haven't been able to find anything about this medal online. If someone can instruct me on embedding picture files, I will upload the pictures. They are jpg files. thanks
  14. Thanks all for the information. I also heard corroborating information from Vasily at M&M. The 1922 half-dot variety only occurs for the proof strikes and is priced slightly more than the variety without the half-dot as shown in one-kuna's excerpt from the second edition. It seems that one can always learn something new in the study of coins. As I've said, I've never seen anything mentioned about these varieties in English texts. BTW, Vasily told me that the fifth edition of Fedorin is soon to be out. I can see already by comparison with one-kuna's second edition that Mr. Fedorin added a lot more detail just to the listings for the RSFSR roubles between my first edition and the second. I will probably buy the new edition when it comes out, so if someone has a good source, I'd like to know. Thanks again.
  15. Have you ever seen these variants mentioned in an English text? I haven't. I wonder whether there is a premium applied to the "half-dot" variety? Fedorin says "very rare" in 1998. Does the 2010 edition still say "very rare?"
  16. There's nothing that clearly identifies the edition; the only thing that is specific is: Moscow 1998 on the cover. Inside on the second page is: УДК 737.1 (47+57), ББК 63.2 (2), Ф32. Perhaps that further identifies the edition. I will take your advice and query Fedorin through M&M. Thanks.
  17. Fedorin doesn't list a separate proof type for the 1922 AG. At least in my copy of the 1998 version (are there newer ones?) he only shows one proof type, #5, which is the PL variety. I interpret that to mean that there are no special types/dies for the AG proof of 1922 - that the same dies are used for both proof and business strikes. There are business strikes of both 1921 and 1922. He shows an uncirculated 1922 on the front cover of his book. In my 1998 edition, he prices type #5 (proof only PL mintmaster) at $300 Of course $300 (or $800) for a proof is very out of date since, depending on the state of preservation, these can go up to $10,000. He doesn't (at least in my edition) show any prices for proof versions of 1921 or 1922 AG. In my book, the only 1922 shown with a price of $800 is the mint error version with the old imperial mintmaster of В-С on the edge. He doesn't mention that this is proof or business strike, but I would guess that the error only came in a business version.
  18. I was thumbing through my copy of Fedorin (Coins of the Land of the Soviets - Moscow 1998) when I noticed the different die varieties of the 1921 and 1922 roubles he has listed as numbers 1-5. I happen to own a proof 1922 Rouble AG that I now see is die 3 fragment B (очень редко) very rare. Since I don't see these "fragments", as he calls them, listed in English texts on Russian coins, I was wondering if the rarity holds over to proof versions of these coins. Fedorin only lists a different proof die for the 1922 PL version, no different die for a proof version of the 1922 AG. The difference between the fragments A and B is a half-dot that is visible at the right-end of the circle of dots that surround the state emblem (hammer and sickle). On fragment A, the last dot at the lower right end of the circle is fully formed and there is a clean space between that dot and the right hand flourish which surrounds R.S.F.S.R. On fragment B, there is a half dot that is embedded in the flourish. If you have a copy of Fedorin, the pictures on page 20 of die #1 (ШТ-1) show the two fragments. Here is my proof rouble. If you look closely, you may be able to see the fragment B as I've explained it, but the picture is not huge as the following is. And here is another proof 1922 AG off the Heritage site. You should be able to see that this is Fedorin's fragment A (need to log in to the Heritage site) http://coins.ha.com/c/lot-image.zx?saleNo=410&lotNo=14810&lotIdNo=9127&inventoryNo=0&id=1135115 If any of the "experts" on this board are familiar with the rarity of fragment B for the Proof version of the 1922 AG rouble, I would be interested in your comments. For the business strike, as I've mentioned, Fedorin rates it very rare, but I've never seen it mentioned in any auction. Thank you.
  19. Thank you all for your comments. Knowing that TPG (third party grading - for the uninitiated) affects ultimate selling price strongly, and aware that there is a certain amount of luck with any given submission, I was somewhat concerned about the grade this coin would achieve. So I was able to exhale finally when I saw the result. When I purchased the raw coin over 20 years ago, I looked at it reasonably closely and was convinced it was worth what I would be paying. I didn't have any thoughts of selling at the time, and the grading services were not yet grading foreign coins. Recently, when I started to think about disposing of my coins, I examined the rouble again, and my thought was that it was flawless and would come back 67 (or higher). Then I made the mistake of looking at it with my super sharp high power (200x) Meiji zoom stereo microscope. It's a wonderful experience to view a high quality coin that way. One sees in detail how the design is lifted from the raw metal blank and how each design element is crafted by the engraver. But at the same time, one sees a myriad of defects, magnified of course way beyond what the grader would see with his/her 5x loupe. After I looked through the microscope, I was convinced that it would come back only, at best, a 65. So I'm happy now. IMOP, the grade is spot-on as the toning hides a few tiny marks in the fields viewable with the standard loupe.
  20. Thanks Igor. But have you heard of a dealer or collector by the name of Barkovski?
  21. Thanks Bob. I know that 1910 is a scarce year for circulation strikes, but we don't know if it's any scarcer for proof strikes. I purposely avoid tying the known mintage for "business" strikes to proof issues. But you're right in that the circulation strike mintage seems to carry weight with prospective buyers when it comes to proofs. Why, I don't know. It would seem like somewhere in the mint records there would be data on the proof strikes for each year. It's strange that it's never been reported - or perhaps records were destroyed during the revolution or during hectic times of the Leningrad siege. The yearly answers by the Russians to interrogatories from the US that the RNS journals so capably reported seemed never to carry any data on proof strikes. On another subject, are you familiar with a Russian dealer named Barkovski or something like that? I have heard that he is the Sincona collection consignor. True?
  22. I have had the coin for 20 years but now I'm thinking more of beginning to sell, so for this coin, it had to be in a slab. But trying to find the appropriate venue for selling is much harder than buying, especially with this type of material. My feeling now is that European houses are getting more for high grade Russian than a house like Heritage or Markov.
  23. Just back from PCGS: my proof 1910 rouble. I've had this for 20 years and vacillated many times over which service to use for grading. Having been disappointed lately by the results of an NGC world coin submission, I decided to try PCGS. It is their first such proof 1910 graded. NGC has graded several proof 1910 roubles, but nothing higher than 65. I've tracked proof roubles for years, and it's always puzzled me why the auction houses reference the circulation strike numbers when describing proofs as if those numbers somehow had a bearing on the scarcity (or lack thereof) of a particular proof date. Judging by the numbers graded at both companies, it seems to me that the proof mintages of all the Nicholas roubles are roughly the same. It's also apparent to me that, when grading these proofs, both N... and P... give colorful toning a lot of weight, sometimes tipping a "5" to a "6" or a "6" to a "7." PCGS pop listing for the 1910 proof rouble (showing a picture of my rouble as the only one listed) ==> http://images.pcgs.c...043544_2200.jpg This picture doesn't show the reflectivity of the coin - but taking pictures of proof coins I believe is really tough. For example, their "secure plus" picture associated with the cert looks to me like a scan - lifeless ==> http://images.pcgs.com/SecurePlus/25043544_large.jpg The picture in the pop report, the previous link in this post, shows the coin in a much more realistic view, but still no mirrors.
×
×
  • Create New...