1922 50 Kopeck

Got this in ther old mail today, paid $3.00 for it. According to the Krause it books for $5.00-$7.50, but with theprice of silver going up every day, who knows

Merry Christmas
Bone

 

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That is a very nice coin.The coins of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic is a 2 year type series,as the U.S.S.R.'s first coins weren't issued until 1923,even though the U.S.S.R. was proclaimed during 1922. Did you check the edge? One of the edges is inscribed in Dolyi & Zolotniks,which are old Russian weight measures.This is scarce.There is a edge variety which gives
the weight in Grammes.However,my command of the Russian language is very limited.The first word on the reverse translates to 'PROLETARII',which means 'Proletariat'.

Aidan.

 

You should look for the scarce 1922 ruble.

 

Nice coin Bone!
Your staples have verdi gris..LOL

 

Money is the symbol of all virtues

It says:
Protelarians of the world unite.

(what else could it say?)

I have the Ruble.

the communists thought that they could get along without money. Hah! They needed it for more than economic reasons. They needed if for epistemologic reasons.

Yet in many ways communist ideas permeate. Consider Star Trek. only the Ferengi seem to enjoy money. Star Fleet and the Federation live without it. In fact, in one episode, Capt. Jean-Luc Picard tells a man from our time that in the future, people are more concerned with improving themselves than they are with the accumulation of things. This attitude, from a man in a uniform who commands some people and obeys the orders of others, begs a few questions. In the absence of money, how does the Federation know whether to open a mining colony or build ships? How does anyone know what to do?

The problem is not science fiction: it is the very problem faced by the Bolsheviks. They were forced to use money by the same laws of the universe that demanded that they acknowledge gravity.

 

That's good.

 

Face it, the Bolsheviks/Communists could gradually brainwash the masses into believing capitalism was the ruin of the earth, that a "few" people being shipped off to Siberia was good for the country, that Stalin was benevolent and brilliant, but they could not convince people to take fiat money. Of course any study of the development of money in the RSFSR and then the USSR convinces one that their initial attempts at introducing currencies were wrought with failure as the currencies quickly deflated in value relative to any purchasing power.

So thus by 1921 the RSFSR begin striking Ruble coins and 50 Kopek coins in token amounts and then in 1925 the USSR started issuing small amounts of Chervonetz or 10 Ruble gold coins. These coins were issued in the old standard from the Tsarists days. Also in 1924-1925 the USSR started issuing billon coins in .500 fineness for smaller coins down to 10 kopeks. These were all issued until they were discontinued and replaced with a base metal coinage in 1931-1932.

So the Communists eventually succeeded in replacing good money with bad, but then so did the Capitalists a year later with gold, and thirty years later with silver.

So when you think of it from that perspective maybe the Communists of the 1930's were forward thinking in driving out good money, even the Capitalists eventually caught on and did it.

 

I've never been a Star-Trek fan partly because we couldn't pick it up on TV (no cable, just antenna directional clicker) when I was a kid growing up. Hence my brother and I turned to coins and with my dad's hardware store we had plenty to look thru.

Chuckle, foregin coins were the occasional silver "cinc Peso or un Peso" which were traded for nails or perhaps a bridle. I've got a couple of those too. The Kopeck was neat for me because of the Star, the Sickle, and the Arm/Hammer.

Bone

 

Eventually they decided to mint gold coins, but it soon was killed off:



A restrike of the somewhat scarce 1923 chervonets.

Pity that this didn't last long enough.

 

Curiously enough, these restrikes were never available in the USSR. When you wanted gold, you got Nikolai II coins. In fact, I was offered some of somewhat questionable authenticity a few times.

 

It seems that the restrikes were only offered as foreign payments. What seems odder was that the reason why it was minted from 1977-1982 was because of the Moscow Olympics. I have some pamplets that seem to suggest that these were minted in occurance with the Olympics commemorative coins and some of these chervonets were to be sold as souvenirs at restricted areas. As of where, I am not too sure, and I would like to know more.

But as you remember how gold prices went to ridicious prices in 1980, I am sure that was more than enough reason as of why these disappeared quite quickly when it was issued.

 

I wonder what was melted to make them from, bars or older coins? Curiously the USSR kept a lot of gold and silver coins in vaults right into the late 1980's when they started selling them. Explains the numbers of Latvijan 5 Lati coins that are available to collectors now.

 

Who knows, maybe those coins could have been melted any day but for some reasons, they didn't really need to melt down so much of the previous old coins. But as a matter of fact, we all know that Russia has awful lot of natural resources, so it would not be too difficult to mint them from totally new bars.

Can you imagine the shock that I had when I actually saw a 100oz palladium bar that was proudly made in the USSR sometime ago?

 

I was trying to translate it literally.

Mike,I know what it means in English,but I was trying to translate it literally from the Cyrillic alphabet into the English alphabet phonetically.

Aidan.

 

Bone, that's a really neat looking coin. I like it for the same reasons you mentioned.

Not to hijack your thread Bone, but as some of you know, I like gold coins. I've checked out some gold coins from other countries, but don't have any yet. I really like the Russian ones. So, the 5 and 10 Rouble coins...do you know how much gold is in them? like 1/10 or 1/4 oz? I do realize that it looks like the sizes changed a bit sometime in the 1800's or so. Can anybody point me to some websites or books about Russian coinage? Thanks!

 

tcore, if you wish to read more stuffs about Russian coinage, I have posted quite a fair bit on coinpeople.com. I believe you have to register before reading the rest of the post.

This is the link of metals used in Russian coinage: http://coinpeople.com/index.php?showtopic=487

In there, there will be a list of changes during various eras.

 

Thanks for the link gx!

So for 5 рублей, does that mean 5 roubles? And am I reading it correct that for example... from 1886 - 1896, that coin was 86 2/5 fine, so 86.4 % gold and had a total weight of 6.45 grams? Thanks, just want to see if my interpretation of the information is correct.

 

Yup tcore, that's how it is. It can't be any more difficult

Note that Russian gold coins have been going through the roof at alarming rates. You can't even find any older gold coins prior to 1850s at a decent prices.

 

Do you have any other information about the "coins in vaults"?
How does that explain that the Latvian 5 Lati coins are available? The Latvian coins are available because after the occupation the borders opened..
About Russian gold coins: In the beginning of 1920-s the soviet russia exported lots of coins (and other valuable stuff) to Europe. In a few years about 700 tons of gold coins were sold through Estonia, most of them went to UK & Sweden. The main man who was behind this business in Estonia was the banker Klaus Scheel. The contact in Sweden was Mr. Wallenberg (Svenska Enskilda Banken manager)

 

Because in 1980's Mezhnumizmatika in Moskva was selling these in bulk lots to foreign interests. I know, because somewhere around in my old mail I have a price lists from them.