alexbq2

Ian, to clarify - the 2K, 5K, and 1768 10K are, sadly, not genuine. The reason why we see them as not genuine is inextricably linked to the information provided in the links we shared. Namely, the lettering and design details on these coins are not consistent with that of the coins that are considered to be genuine. To put it in plain words, they don't look right. You can see it for yourself if you compare the images of those 3 coins with the images of the genuine ones. While the overall design looks close, the devil is in the details.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Russian coins. Unfortunately, the market is flooded with replicas of varying quality. One has to exercise extreme caution. As a general rule, do not buy directly from Russia. There are export prohibitions on antiquities, and most sellers just pedal replicas. This forum in the Russian language, has a lot of information: http://coins.su/forum/forum/262-poddelnye-monety-dlya-kollektsionerov/

Good call! I thought that one looked a bit better, but having taken a closer look it is, unfortunately, not authentic.

A new coin Hisa? Great find! I vaguely recall reading somewhere about the the 1726 Kopeck (maybe here?). There's a difference in the terms Pattern and Essai, which might not exist (or be commonly used) in Russian terminology. Pattern presumes a perfectly struck example to be copied, this is usually a new design being adopted by the mint, and to your point there is no reason to produce a Pattern in 1726 for a design that existed in 1724. From what I understand/recall the 1726 coins are - Essais. The mint was gearing up to launch another series of the "Frame" kopecks in 1726, new dies were made and a few Essais were struck to test the new dies. But the production was canceled, and now you have a very rare coin - Congrats!

Here's an interesting article on this topic in Russian - http://urk97.narod.ru/club/gazeta2006/gazeta_02_02.htm

The 1722 Peter 2 roubles on eBay looks very fake.

2 Kopecks 3 Kopecks 5 Kopecks

I've recently come to purchase a full set of the so called 1961 USSR Die Trials. It's 9 tokens matching in sizes and composition the Soviet coins that came into circulation in 1961. However they are uniface and only bear the inscription Образец Госбанка СССР. I don't actually collect much in terms of the Soviet era coins, but these seemed interesting and I could get a full set in NGC BU slabs, so I went for it. As usual for me, I first buy and then start looking around to figure out what it is that I bought. To start with, these are listed in Petrov/Fedorin's catalog # 757, 758, 759, 760, 761, 762, 763, 764, 765. I don't actually have that book but that's what a lot of auctions reference. MiM has the following comment - A very interesting and rare full set of service tokens, struck on the specially prepared planchets of all denominations. Most likely these specimens had a demonstrative/technical purpose. Possibly their creation is tied to the activities connected with the 1961 monetary reform. (Очень интересная и редкая, полная подборка служебных жетонов, отчеканенных на специально подготовленных кружках монетных заготовок разных номиналов. Скорее всего, данные образцы имели экспозиционно-технологическое назначение. Вероятно, их появление можно связать с подготовкой проведения мероприятий, связанных с монетной реформой 1961 года.) Digging around a little more I came across the following information from Fedorin himself posted on Coins.su in 2013 (Образцы Госбанка Ссср . Полный Комплект). Where he makes the following statement - "On the eve of the 1961 reform, the state officials ordered vending machines abroad that were meant to accept the new 1961 type coins. These machines were accompanied by samples of coins that imitated our circulation coins (reforms of 1961). The samples were also made (minted) abroad (I think the emission is small - a maximum of several hundred pieces). Later, something did not work out as usual, and the automated vending machines were not accepted. The machines were not purchased and the specimens for these machines were left behind. They laid around (in the same place abroad) in the finished goods warehouse for 45 years, and then were thrown into the numismatic market. First they were sold in the west, and then they came to us. That's the whole hypothetical story of the origin of these artifacts. In Russia (in the 80s and 90s), these things were extremely rare. Now the price for these samples is purely demand driven. For my own collection, I bought such a set at the market price. I have no regrets, interesting items." Interestingly enough I have seen a few references to these being struck in Birmingham (seems strange that a foreign mint would only put down writing in Russian and referencing USSR's Госбанк/Statebank directly, unless that was required by the contract?) - "These were struck in England (Birmingham), by a private company, as bank die trials for the Soviet government. " https://www.vcoins.com/en/stores/world_money_shop/189/product/russiaussr_1961_nd_9_piece_die_trial_set_ngc_brilliant_uncirculated_birmingham_mint/387633/Default.aspx I wonder if it is not more likely that the Soviet Mint was shopping around for new equipment to be used in the huge emissions of the 1961 and onward, and these were indeed equipment trials but then they were left behind for some reason? What's also interesting is that these do show up raw, but most seem to be in the NGC slabs with the same 4 (as I have seen so far) submission numbers (3203939, 3203912, 3203913, 3203914). I poked around on the NGC's certificate validation and came up with the following numbers: NGC ID Range Quantity 3203939 100 3203912 500 3203913 499 3203914 274 So as far as I can tell someone in 4 submissions sent 1373 of these specimens to NGC. I'm not certain, but in fact I'm pretty sure that the numbers for each type of specimen are not the same, but NGC doesn't let me make too many consecutive searches so it's hard to tell the exact numbers. At any rate this means that at most there can be 152 full sets of these in slabs. These slabs look older than the currently used ones. I found the following post and based on the information provided these slabs were in use from 2004 to 2008, which is sort of the peak time frame for the popularity of Russian numismatics, so makes sense they would come out of the woodwork - https://www.ngccoin.com/boards/topic/117773-ngc-slab-varieties/?tab=comments#comment-2223449 If anyone comes around more information about these die trials please add it to this thread. Thanks in advance!

Bought a few times from them, nothing in that specific auction though. No problems with payments, they usually take forever to ship coins (months). Also, there are fakes in pretty much every auction, not all are sold as "collector's copies". Good luck!

This one? https://www.katzauction.com/lots/view/1-34J7LN/russia-4-kopeks-1796-antique-collector-copy I think I have something like that lying around.

I was thinking that about the Crimean Kyrmis coins

Maybe someday...

All the way back in 2008 I bought on eBay an object that resembles a Novodel of a 4 kopeck 1761 coin. This one: I actually posted here at that time - After scratching my head for a while I stuffed it into my safe deposit box and mostly forgot about it. It looks suspect but at the same time I like it. I don't have to be rational all the time Earlier today I was stuck for a few hours in a conference call which I was just listening in on, I felt I had time to also browse M-DV.ru. I was actually looking at some other copper coins of Elisabeth's period that I was trying to attribute to their respective mints. A bit later I grabbed my copy of the 2002 Diakov's catalog for Elisabeth's period. And flipping through the coppers I came across his description of the 1761 4 kopecks. He has 2 types listed and neither one is an exact match for my coin, although N570 is pretty close. Since I had M-DV.ru opened I looked through the auction records that they have accumulated over the years. Not sure if M-DV.ru even existed back in 2008 but, as of late, they have been scanning old auction catalogs which is pretty awesome! Now they have posted 57 listings for this type - https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/page,1/id,4902/prohod.html The majority of the recorded coins fall into the 2 categories described by Diakov back in 2002. N569 features a larger St. George, with more ground under him on the obverse. The reverse, while pretty similar, has a few notable differences. Such as the tip of a 3rd pike or banner sticking out from under the folds on the right, and the 7 in 1761 seems to be a bit higher than the rest of the numerals: The N570 looks more like my coin, but not quite... Overall it has the same smaller St. George, and the position of the 7 in the date looks pretty similar to my coin. At the same time there are multiple variations. Just to list a couple, on obverse of N570 the second star from the left, next to the butt of the spear, looks upside down or rather it is pointing outward. On reverse of N570 there are only the two banners and no 3rd tip is poking out. N570: N569 and N570 comprise the majority of the 57 auction records, but not all! I also found a couple of other interesting variations: From Hans M.F. Schulman 1962 - https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,255409/image.html You can see that while the obverse looks like that of N570, the reverse features the 3rd tip I was referring to above, but it is not the obverse of the N569 (note the position of the 7). Another one from a more recent auction with a better photo - https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,125913/image.html And I did find a few records of coins that do indeed resemble mine. The second start looks upright, and there is a 3rd banner tip. Note however that on these coins some details are not the same as on any of the coins above. The tip of the 3rd banner is just a hint on these coins: https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,34435/image.html https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,258499/image.html And there is a coin that evidently just can't find a good home. NGC MS-62 graded coin that is first recorded in a Heritage auction in 2015, and has subsequently showed up in several auctions in Russia. https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,128611/image.html https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,138263/image.html https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,210481/image.html https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,245518/image.html https://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/p,288808/image.html

I bought the 1836 10K CM

Well done Sigi! You live you learn... Mine has 4 feathers, I'm guessing 5 feathers is scarcer?

Eugene, you'll have to show me what specifically you are referring to. The SM discussion is heavily edited and I only skimmed through it. I do want to point out that there is a difference between the production equipment and the trial strikes produced during the testing of that equipment and the specimens that were produced by SPB for the regional mints. We see this difference with the specimens produced for the Tifflis and Moldavia mints as well.

I saw this discussion on Staraya Moneta yesterday. And here today. I sort of think we're all getting trapped by our own terminology. What I (as well as everyone else) can tell from looking at these coins, is that they were definitely not struck at TM for circulation purposes. What Eugene pointed out as well as the documentation provided by the GÖTTINGEN universtity indicates that the coins were struck at SPB on or before 1787. Did the mint workers really care if they were making a coin as a specimen for a TM mint or for a private collector? My guess is not so much. So we can say that the same people using the some equipment at the same place and more or less at the same time period would have made practically identical objects to fill the official government and private orders. I don't think they particularly cared if these objects would be later referred to as Novodels or Specimens. And I don't know how to distinguish between the two.

Cause it's an Austrian Kreuzer

Polushka Denezhka Kopeck

Allegedly there are known fakes: http://www.staraya-moneta.ru/forum/messages/forum3/topic24283/message205151/#message205151

A 1706 gold Ducat was on sale - https://www.ebay.com/itm/RUSSIA-PETER-GOLD-ROUBLE-RUBEL-DUCAT-Fine-condition-but-very-rare-RR-/332937841599?nordt=true&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m43663.l44720 Sold for a $1034, a bargain if a real coin, but is it?

Just saw Eugene's post on Staraya Moneta, and rushed back here to congratulate Sigi with this amazing find! This coin has found a worthy owner, congratulations!

That's really interesting! Thanks for sharing.

Happy New Year!

Thanks! Just looked through them. Lots of unsold lots but they were somewhat pricey.