During the mid Soviet eras, perhaps around 1970s, the Soviet-German venture Mezhnumizmatika was formed so that it could sell numismatic related goods to the Western nations for hard currencies. Mezhnumizmatika is better known for selling restruck proof Soviet rubles, or rather novodels that were struck prior to 1987.
Please do let me know if you have any other posters of Mezhnumizmatika that you are willing to share or sell to me. Any questions or enquires are to be directed here:
The following is a couple of posters that Mezhnumizmatika was selling back in 1989. Quite interesting really.
Feel free to click on the posters for larger views:
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Early Soviet ruble coins struck before 1987 were not commonly struck in proof condition, in particular coins struck before 1980. Restrike was performed in 1988 such as this coin:
Most of the Soviet non-precious metals commemorative rubles are available for a reasonable price although some varieties and or combination can be proven to be difficult to find such as this mule:
This is a novodel version of the Frederick Engels restruck in 1988. This coin was originally struck in 1985 to commemorate the 100th anniversary since the death of Frederick Engels, however a bad pairing occurred during restrike and hence this rare error occured.
While most of the coins are quite normal, this set commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Great October Revolution can be considered to be one of the highlights:
(From left to right, 1 ruble commemorating the Soviet battleship, Aurora; 3 ruble coin commemorating Russian soldiers and 5 ruble coin commemorating Lenin)
For the first time, denomination larger than 1 ruble were struck and in particular, the 5 ruble coin is worth noting this is the largest Nicupro coin ever struck during the Soviet era.
Specifications:
All coins of the same denomination struck later were drastically reduced to 19.8grams and were never struck in such size ever again.
The rest of the Soviet coin collection can be found in my collection: http://www.omnicoin.com/user_view.aspx?id=gxseries
Medals struck during the Soviet era can be difficult to find due to it's low mintage and in general were not available to the public unlike most Soviet non-precious metal commemorative coins. Mintages can be in surprisingly low thousands and it is not known clearly how much are still surviving up to this date as when most of them were marketed too overpriced originally, making them very unaffordable in the first place. I am not a medal collector so I can't quite say how rare some of them can be.
In here, I would like to present you a medal set that I bought some years ago at a bargain when silver price is at a mere 5USD/oz and the premium was at a mere 1-2% which is extremely cheap when each medal weights a heavy 5 oz pure silver! Unlike what the poster said that all medals were struck in Moscow Mint, this set, in particular the Peace and Cooperation medal illustrated on the poster are all struck in Leningrad Mint. All medals except for the Peace and Co-operation medal are just struck at a mere thousand.
This particular set was packaged by the American Bullion and Coin and marketed to the US in this way. Not all medals were packaged in this way and there are less than 1,000 sets available.
Medal 1: Peace and Co-operation Commemorative
The first in the series, represents the breakthrough of USSR-US relations after more than forty years of cold war tensions. Struck at the Leningrad Mint, the first prototype was presented at the White House by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, to U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz, on September 17th, 1987. Two artists, Tim A. Haskin of US, and Alexander Polodkin of USSR worked on this medal. Mintage at 10,000.
Medal 2: INF Treaty
The INF Summit Treaty medallion was struck in Leningrad in June of 1988, upon the official ratification of the INF Treaty in Moscow and Washington, D.C. This singular treaty set forth the elimination of a whole class of nuclear warhead missiles, the first nuclear weaponry ever designated for liquidation. The date 08.12.1987 signifies of when the treaty was signed in the White House. Mintage: 1,000
Medal 3: Millennium of Russian Christanity
The 3rd medal, the Millennium of Russian Christianity, commemorates the 1000 years of Russia's baptism into Christianity. In 988, Vladimir the Great, had the inhabitants of his capitol Kiev baptised. 1000 years later, Patriarch Pemin, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, sanctified the entire mintage of this series and presented the first two pieces of this medallion to President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev during the Moscow Summit May 30th 88. Mintage: 1,000.
Medal 4: Thousand year Ruble
The 4th medal of the Series is the Thousand Year
Ruble commemorating the mintage of the first Russian coins in the city of Kiev
in 988. Striking both Ag and Au, the Kievan Rus, under Prince Vladimir,
established the base currency which became the Ruble of today. Byzantine
Christian motifs highlighted the first designs, in observance of the baptism of
Russia into Christianity that same year. Mintage: 1,000.
Hoped you enjoyed reading. Will update when I get more information and interesting pieces.
08/02/2008