I was given these foreign notes and was wondering what they are and if they are worth anything. 1910, 1914 and 1917 are what appears to be the dates.
The top two are Imperial German, and the bottom one is Russian. Sorry, but I know little or nothing about currency, and can't tell you if any or all of them are genuine government notes, notgeld (emergency money), or fantasy items. I'm going strictly by the "Reichsbanknote" designations, and the language in which the third one is phrased.
The top two are regular Imperial German issues, and so aren't Notgeld. For the most part, the most common of those were issues of the early 1920s. The third is indeed Russian, although I don't know the issuing authority. It must be remembered that there were 3 major periods of government in 1917 Russia. The Tsar was overthrown in February (OS) 1917. The Provisional Government (whose most notable Prime Minister was Kerensky) ruled jointly with the Petrograd Soviet (not yet a Communist body, although it was dominated by the socialist/communist parties) until October (OS) 1917, when the Bolsheviks seized power. The note's lack of any Tsarist or Communist symbols leads me to believe it's from the Provisional period. None of them are terribly valuable.
Bottom one is 250 rubles, and if I'm reading it right.... it's a note exchangable for 250 rubles worth of gold.... basically a Russian Gold Cert. I believe it was issued by the Bank of Russia. I just started reading Russian, and I can decipher the letters, and a few of the words, but that about it. I have a five ruble note from 1919, and it has the same box of text after the "PYb/\EN" which means "Rublees" or Rubles. I had mine translated by a Russian language professor, who said it means that the Russian Gov't issued it as a Gold Cert.
"I had mine translated by a Russian language professor, who said it means that the Russian Gov't issued it as a Gold Cert." Good luck trying to redeem it.
All of these are very common. All of these notes are very common,even the Russian 250 Roubles is a common note.They're worth around $5 in total. Aidan.
The bottom note is in fact a gold cetificate, although not like any gold certificate we've ever issued. It was redeemable for gold, but the printing run wasn't limited. So there were more notes issued than gold to back them. The Bolsheviks did this during the "war communism" era in an effort to end the need for money in Russia. It almost worked. The Bolsheviks found, however, that there was at least a small need for money. But they did such an effective job destroying the ruble that they had to issue a new currency - the Chervonetz (it means "red" in Russian) - in 1923. I don't know when the ruble was re-introduced, but my own knowledge of history suggests it occured during the Great Patriotic War (WW II). I visited my uncle this weekend, and he translated mine - I have one denominated 500 rubles. He's formerly the Director of the Institute for East European and Russian Studies at Indiana University, and so is fluent in a number of Slavic languages. We also looked up in some of his books the history of the economics of the era.
But the back of the top one is like... like... candy. ("Candy" was chosen instead of some other less appropriate words, heh) I'm trying to figure out a reason why I need to get a few more of those.
