Imperial Russian banknotes signed by Shipov

[Rhino]

I have read that the Imperial 5 Rouble notes with Shipov's signature and a shorter serial number were actually used by the Soviets despite being dated "1909". Now, is that also true for the other denominations signed by Shipov? Did they also use the 10, 25, 100, and 500 Rouble notes issued from 1909 to 1912 (and signed mostly by Shipov) as valid currency? Or did the Soviets just throw out all the other notes except the 5, and used the 5's templates to make the shorter serial notes...? It's a bit frustrating figuring out which notes the Soviets used and which notes are distinctly Czarist....

 

And if the short-serial 5 Rouble notes were used by the Soviets, did they also accept the long-serial ones that were printed before they came to power?

 

Any help would be appreciated, and if there is an article or book I should check out that explains the history of these banknotes, I'd definitely like to know.

[Rhino]

Anyone?

[Dave]

Well I don't know much about these, but that is indeed what I've heard. The notes with the Shipov were evidently issued well into the 1930's, and because of this, there are a lot more of them and notes with that signature are thus worth a lot less than earlier issues.

 

But I've not been privy to seeing it in print in catalogues - just reitterating that which I've read online in forums and observing the lesser value of the Shipov notes.

 

I looked again online for a nice reference to back this up, but there is nothing concrete that I can cite. I DID find something interesting for those who are into history and especialy Russian banknotes. The 2001 Annual report issued by ROSBANK - yeah, I know who wants to read up on an old annual report of a foreign bank..? Not me - but I DO like the nice full page layouts of past banknote signatories. You should take a look - nothing much about how long Shipov's notes were issued, but you can see a photo of him and others and read short bios!

 

http://www.rosbank.ru/common/img/uploaded/...k_AR_01_eng.pdf

[Dave]

Ok so I was happy finding that little bit about the history of the signatories, and so I looked for the other ROSBANK reports. Found the ones from 2000-2007. Only 2001 and 2002 have the historical articles. Here's 2002's annual report (done in antique style). Still I didn't see anythign about Shipov's issues, though.

 

http://www.rosbank.ru/common/img/uploaded/...k_AR_02_eng.pdf

[Rhino]

Thanks for the link. Shipov may have signed notes into the 30s, but I don't know about his notes from the Imperial era being used that late into history, I mean those 5 Rouble notes from "1909" (actually 1917) were printed before 2 re-evaluations of the Rouble, so they would have been totally worthless... but I wonder if the Konshin or Timashev or Pleske notes were still valid under the Soviets. The Shipov 5 Rouble is easy to spot since the serial number is very short, but the other ones would have still looked 99% like the other notes...

 

Perhaps we may never know, this is something they did almost 100 years ago. Oh well...

[Dave]

Unfortunately my issue of the SCWPM Volume 2 does not list the dates that the Shipov notes were used. It states only: "Some of the Shipov notes were later printed by the Provisional Government and still later by the Soviet Government. These notes are of lighter colors than the original Imperial printing."

 

I think a catalog on Russian banknotes would be the next step. Anyone have one?

[Saor Alba]

The imperial era ruble had lost most of it's value by 1919, so by then it would not have been worthwhile to print them anymore since then they were printing notes in the thousands of ruble denominations.

 

There is no way they would have printed them into the 1930s. They bore symbols that were forbidden during the Soviet era - the Tsarist eagle was forbidden to be displayed up until ca. 1990 and I have photographs I took in the USSR when they were starting to uncover all the stuff that had been covered up for so long.