Was going through my collection and sorting them out - I'm sure I'll need another decade the way I'm going. Thought I'll catalog what mints I had this time. It is interesting to see how many mints Russia had at one stage as well as foreign coins that struck for Russia as well. The two most common mints people would think would be St. Petersburg and Moscow. Perhaps Ekaterinburg if you know a little bit more about Russian coinage. How about Suzun? Sestroretsk Mint - which is technically more an armory. Sadagura which used captured Turkish cannons as coinage. Foreign mints were involved such as Poland, Finland, Georgia, France, Belgium and even Japan! While a fair number are common, some can get very difficult. I consider myself to be very lucky as a fair number of these coins were obtained before Russian coins became a bit too popular and expensive. Here's my link http://gxseries.com/numis/rus_imperial/mint/russia_mint.htm As of my personal favorite... it's difficult but if I had to pick one: This coin was struck in 1788 in Tauric Mint, Feodosia - better known as Crimea. While I am not going to spark a debate of where Crimea belongs to - at one stage it did strike Russian coinage for just a couple of years in 1787 and 1788. Quite interesting piece of history. Please feel free to post some of the unusual mints struck during the Russian Empire!
Great article! The difference in production quality between the main mints and "necessity" mints is interesting. Valuable information
I guess this is quite difficult to illustrate the difference between mint quality. Historically it has always been St. Petersburg Mint that had the latest technology. For instance St. Petersburg had collars to strike more uniform circular coins by 1810. This technology trickled to other mints a few decades later. Taking for example in 1810s from various mints: St Petersburg Izhora (In early days, Izhora reengraved SPB mintmark to IM - shows it's close proximity to St. Petersburg) Ekaterinburg Suzun Some mints are arguably satellite mints. What I find interesting is the involvement of foreign mints striking coins for Russia. Official "counterfeits" such as St. Petersburg Turkish kurus, Dutch dukats as well as Avesta Mint counterfeiting Russian 5 kopek is quite intriguing.
I'm still trying to cherrypick an Avesta mint 5 kopeks. Not willing to pay up for it outright. Those things are overpriced IMO
I kinda have to disagree - the Avesta 5 kopek is actually quite scarce to rare in any condition. I can only imagine that when it appeared for circulation, it would have been ruthlessly removed from circulation. I would suspect that some would have been used to be overstruck but I cannot find any samples. As such, if you look at supply vs demand - the demand is definitely there, hence the high price. I think this is one of the coins that I have been looking for more than a decade.
