IMIS

The Millennia collection was awesome!

100 views and no winners? Looks like "savage aliens" have taken our precious metals...again. On a more serious note, I find it rather remarkable that the smallest auction house yields the highest prices.

Did anybody prevail at Goldberg?

It died of old age.

Very nice set. 1896 25 kop in MS65 is not that easy to find. Congrats!

Oddly enouph, it is true. BTW, this is the Sincona coin I had in mind. Don't think it has been graded yet.http://www.sixbid.com/browse.html?auction=465&category=10148&lot=474327

I would love to own one in 'ms', or at least a genuine 'au'.

Personally, I like the one from Sincona better. This one is decent price/value combo.

Here is a decent coin for the type http://www.ebay.com/itm/131199437993?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649#ht_4086wt_1238

I was thinking of later date (1840+) bulky copper altyns. I would be the first one to drop Peter's silver altyns.

Nice original taler. Gradable too. Although I think talers look better w/o slabs. With that principal sky is the limit for your collection.

Very nice in deed. I am very impressed with your collection. Is there a general direction, or you are 'an equal opportunity' collector?

Just a few years ago there was a constant stream of nice graded minors on ebay. Today seeing a nice minor for sale on ebay is almost an event. Wondering if all gradable coins have been slabbed and are now settled in collections.

This is very plausible for the XVIIIth c. ...........Following the copper reform of 1867 (which I believe was carried out w/o any loss to the purchasing power of copper coins) a stable coin system was established that lasted for 50 years. You would think that by early XXth c. people have got sufficiently used to the new coinage to part with their beloved Katherine's pyataks and semaks and later date altyns. You would also think that the logistics have improved sufficiently to make coin exchange more profitable for the authorities. Well that thinking is rebuffed by the cold facts.... ...."the ground banks" is a classic.

Very interesting. I guess the conclusion from this observation is that the problem was widespread though out Europe and perhaps the cost of collecting old coins outweighed the benefits of melting them. So, the governments just let them circulate until they died of natural causes. Well, good for us!

100% agree. I would love to see a study on regional money supply, e. g. Moscow, Peterburg, Gubernskie goroda, etc. I am pretty sure plenty of data exists, however I am not aware of any study on the subject. It seems that after Spasski's work on the history of Russian monetary system successive generations of numismatists focused their energies primarily on counting eagle's feathers and measuring the size of the crown rather than studying the issues related to coin circulation.

Old habits die hard. As you know a significant part of the population was not happy about Peter's reforms in general and the coinage reform in particular. In the XVIIIth c. Russia had issues with both silver and gold supply. The silver supply issue was largely resolved during the reign of Anna Ioanovna, while the gold supply issue lingered into the reign of Nicholas I; however there is no reason to beleive that there was any shortage of base metal after 1840's. Gold coins were removed from circulation after the Crimean war, but this is a different story. I am still scratching my head as to why.

I think you are right about old coins remaining in circulation up to 1917. Large supply of old coins from circulation would certainly explain why most rouble coins were worth just a rouble according to Petrov. Roubles we consider rare today went for a mind buggling price of 2 rouble, etc. The question then becomes why old coins were not removed from circulation more diligently by the authorities. I understand some countries lacked certain base metals to produce sufficient supply of coins to satisfy their monetary needs and had to keep coins in circulation past their normal wear and tear. This certainly can not be said about Russia in the XIXth -XXth centuries; mintages and varieties of coins seem to be more than sufficient to meet monetary demand of the population. Not to mention the fact that Russia heavily relied on paper money for larger transactions. ...Need to revisit Kuprin.

I have always been curious as to how long various types of coins remained in circulation in Imperial Russia and what the official rules and procedures were in place for removal of old types from circulation. Rule of thumb suggests that following a devaluation coins of previous (heavier) type become worth more dead than alive and are removed from circulation, but a huge amount of surviving coins of older types contradicts this hypothesis. Also, many surviving coins of older types are so heavily worn than one must guess their denomination. Why did they continue to circulate? As a starting point, let's take a snapshot of coins in circulation a hundred years ago, right on the eve of the Great war. What would be the oldest dated coins a shopkeeper might find in his cash register?

I wish it were that simple. Follow the link to see a coin with a 10% - 15% red obverse and a 40% - 50% red reverse. These must be scans. In person the coin probably looks much brighter. The grade is 'BN' http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=231421&lotNo=63020#Photo On the other hand, I have a couple of coins graded 'RB' where I am yet to find a red spark. .......Got to be some magic formula they are using.

Congrats on the grades! Some beautiful coins you 've got. ................never could understand NGC's definition of 'RB' Some of their RB's are 90%+ Red and some are 90%+ brown. Go figure...

Sodermann...I would have never guessed. Will go and converse with the coins.

There is an intro by Falz-Fein in The Sincona Collection - Part 1 catalog. Someone mistakenly (or not) decided to use the name... IgorS, Thank you for the info. I do not have the Sincona Collection catalog...If I understood you correctly, it is only the introduction that pertains to Mr. Pfalz-Fein, not the collection. This is actually sad news for me personally as I purchased a few coins in NGC slabs marked as "Pfalz-Fein collection" as a tribute to the Pfalz-Fein family and their contribution to Russia. .....disappointed by NGC's sloppiness. Perhaps I should ask NGC to slab my Transylvania talers as "Count Dracula Collection."

Hello there, Can anyone explain how the Sincona collection became the Pfalz-Fein collection? It is my understanding that the Sincona collection was accumulated by Mr. Anonymous.

I am not a very good photographer. Please see pictures taken by Heritage below http://coins.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=241410&lotNo=15253 :