gxseries

see, you know collecting both the ship and bird series would be more than impossible as the highest denomination is 10,000SGD!!!

You got very good taste there Bobh. I should assemble a set of Nicholai II gold coins one day when finance permits. As for the modern Russian coins, if you noticed, I am extremely stubborn when it comes down to it - if there's no certificate and box, out they go from my mind! But at the same time, I paid a fair amount more and nowadays you rarely see them on ebay. Are modern Russian mint sets pretty scarce or what? I'll ask in the forum.

Bobh - you did wipe out their Russian coin hoard didn't you? Nevertheless, nice looking coins!

East India Company? I have a feeling that it might be quite common. Here is an example that I found on the net except it's half anna: http://www.wmcarey.edu/carey/philnum/philnum.htm Do you happen to have pictures of them?

That is shockingly fast Trantor! I don't remember getting their coins that fast!

Grivna, you know I have seen similar samples on sale YEARS ago when I first started on ebay almost 4 years. I was foolish NOT to buy them and now I don't remember what they are like I did remember however that they had the word "МУЛЯЖ" and wondered what they meant until I searched it up. Now I painfully regret the decision when I saw probably at least 3 unique samples on ebay years ago, but they were all silver patterns, not like this example I have. Perhaps it is a pattern ruble, but right now I'm puzzled over why it has not been catalogued yet. I should get a Krause (suprising that I haven't got one up to now). I am guessing that the Mints must have changed their altitude somewhere during the years that the denomination is not to be engraved and replace it with the word "model". Maybe in 1995? 1997? Who is the Russian coin expert when it comes down to this? Should I send it to the PCGS? NGC? Banivechi, if I am not wrong, there are no Spitzbergen set minted in 1992. The only pattern in that particular year that I can think of by Leningrad mint are the coins minted for Armenia, in both nickel-cupro and brass. Still affordable but I haven't bothered to get any of them yet... and I believe I will regret it painfully one day...

It's not only Romania that's getting expensive. Other countries too that I noticed, are Poland, Korea, and probably Australia have seen their coin prices going to some ridicious prices that I have never seen before. Vietnam and Brazil seems to be on the list next, which I guess, a list of developing countries are usually easily to quality for "super fast" price increase... of course, Russia is a developing nation at the moment... too much natural resources coming out from that country

Time for a mass scale novodel production

I can understand why you decided to turn to the Soviet coins "temporarily". Tsarist coins have been getting pricier these years and even I am feeling the crunch. And I have even lowered my expectations, down to damaged coins...

WAIT, you actually managed to find a Borodino set? Mine is an awful cracked set and I have to replace it eventually. I even forgot when I bought it Speaking about the Moscow Olympics set, the greatest news about it was that, I bought it at 2USD. Yes, why so cheap? That's because the dealer broke the set apart, and sold the box and the coins seperately. I only managed to find one coin out of the 6 sadly But fortunately... I got the box too... Now I'm just looking for the set + certificate... It's just too difficult to focus on the last three hundred years of Russian coinages By any chance did that same bug picked out other relatively scarce Soviet coin sets?

I wasn't keeping myself in touch with the Soviet commemorative coins, but Tane, did you have a hard time looking for this set? Ironically I actually bought this set in Moscow. I haven't seen similar set for awfully long period of time.

Congradulations Tane! The 5 ruble in proof is actually a stunner as well as it's massive size. I don't think there were too many 5 rubles that were minted in such size.

Ah, found it at Basok. I'll try emailing him and pick up a copy when I do have the chance. Thanks for the scan Grivna Soviet trial coins are actually a lot easier to find, but when it comes to modern Russian coins >1991, I haven't heard of any at the moment.

Grivna, would there be any chance that the Rylov/Sobolin catalog mention any pattern coins? As well as, would you happen to know where I can pick a copy?

Here are two more larger images of the same coin: There is one more thing that I remembered, that is, Moscow mint is usually responsible for minting MOST of the Russian gold coins since the Soviet era. Grivna, you wouldn't happen to have any infomation about this in your amazing numismatic literature would you?

"The Anniversary of the State Sovereignty of Russia" commemorative 1 ruble coin was released in 1992. I have these two planchets shown above that are somewhat similar to the coin here: Link Now what do you think it is? I remember posting this on the world coin forum (but that was when this forum section didn't exist) and the general opinion might be that it can't possibly be a pattern. The same post was made at a Russian coin forum, and I guess no one knew of it's existance except to declare that it's some sort of fantasy issue. ---------- - There are some pelicular things about these planchets, that is the awful similarity of the theme, but different design. Notice that the Basilica was NEVER minted in gold. - The mintmark on this particular planchet is actually MMD, instead of LMD, which struck the commemorative 1 ruble NiCupro coins. - A typical Russian style to denote the metal fineness is at the bottom left, which is denoted as "Au 900 15,55" - Planchet size are exactly 29,95mm, which is accordance to a typical 100 ruble, which is 30mm(+- 0.25) mm against a typical NiCupro which is 31mm. The edges of both planchets are actually MILLED! ------ Now back to the original story, in the past, most Soviet precious metal commemorative coins other than silver seem to have some sort of trial sample done. But what does these two planchets mean? If these are genuine, what sort of meaning would they have? If these are fakes or fantasy issues, would someone else other than the MMD / LMD mint be able to make such planchets, other than other world mints? I personally don't think a private individual has the availabilty to strike such planchets... Now... discussion time... I am really hoping that there is new material / resources available to open light to this unusual question that I had for some period of time.

20 years! And I only collected for 3-4 years

Now you see why I emphasis a bit too much on the edging, is not only because of the different varities of the edging style, but you will never know if it might be a previous European planchet used for such striking. In recent Dimitri Markov auctions, he auctioned some unique overstriked coins, which is quite interesting.

Now that's a stunner! Did you check the edging of that particular coin BKB? Seems like the edging done during that particular time was thrown in total chaos and my 1720 crappy ruble actually has 1719 edging on it.

I don't actively collect banknotes but this is an uncut banknote that I got from a friend some time ago. Note that I have 4 of the digits "666". I wonder if my friend is trying cursing me

Where is Murmansk and the 10 ruble dude? :/

Now you know why I avoided US coins in the first place, exept I really regret it nowadays as Russian coins seem to be more expensive than US coins these days

Yikes! Are there dealers that deal with such serial numbers?

Where did 4 and 6 go?

That is VERY well done. Thanks for the link!