Numismatics

The numismatic collection reflects the market relations and monetary systems of almost 50 countries of the world. It contains coins of regular state minting, jubilee, commemorative and trial coins, special-issue coins, heavy plate coins and more. It also includes pre-monetary means of payment, the so-called coin ingots of the Kyivan Rus period.

The museum’s numismatic collection numbers almost 25,000 coins and reflects the economic development and commodity-money circulation of almost 50 countries. Among them are countries of Europe, America, the Middle East and North Africa, and of the South Asian basin. A significant number of coins reflect the monetary system on the territory of the USSR and, after its collapse, in the post-Soviet space. Chronologically, the collection covers the period from the ancient world (coins of antiquity) to modern history, which in the numismatics of the Kharkiv Historical Museum is represented by coins of independent Ukraine.

The collection took shape over many years, was begun in the early 20th century and continues to grow with new acquisitions. By type of coin it is quite varied: it includes pre-monetary means of payment, coins of regular state minting, jubilee, commemorative and trial coins, restrikes, special-issue coins, heavy plate coins and more. The collection also keeps twenty-eight hoards of various content. Each of these types deserves a closer look.

In the 12th and early 13th centuries the main monetary unit on the territory of present-day Ukraine was the hryvnia, issued in the Old Rus cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv; hryvnias of the Principality of Novgorod were also known. Hryvnias were so-called coin-shaped ingots that differed from one another in shape and weight, were quite valuable and were used for accumulating wealth or for paying large sums or tribute. The museum’s collection holds all the listed varieties of these pre-monetary means of payment: 4 ingots of the Kyiv type, 1 of the Chernihiv type and 2 of the Novgorod type.

Coins of regular state minting, the so-called circulation coins, were intended mainly for circulation and were minted, as a rule, over several years in large numbers with an unchanged design. These coins include both full-value circulation coins of precious metal, whose metal value corresponds to the face value, and token (small-change) coins, whose face value exceeded the value of the metal in the coin. Such coins, minted in many countries of the world, are widely represented in the museum’s collection. For example, the copper coin of “2 kopecks” of 1766, made at the Red Mint (Russia), and the silver coin of “3 marks” of 1912, made in Germany.

Among the items of the collection, a quite interesting phenomenon is the comparatively small number of commemorative and jubilee coins, which were devoted mainly to the memory of a particular event or to jubilee dates. Commemorative and jubilee coins were typical of the monetary systems of all countries of the world; besides being part of the system of commodity-money circulation, they perform the additional function of preserving public memory. Thus the museum’s holdings include the commemorative coin “Hero City of Kerch. 1941–1945” with a face value of “200,000 karbovanets”, struck of copper-nickel alloy in 1995 at the Moscow Mint; the coin of “1 rouble 1914” in memory of the naval battle of Hangö (Gangut) in 1714; and the jubilee coin of “100 korun” of 1948 for the 30th anniversary of the Czechoslovak Republic.

Trial coins were minted to a model of a set weight and shape and were then submitted together with other samples for the consideration of a special commission, for selection and a decision on minting. They were sometimes made of precious metals, but more often of copper. They very rarely come into the hands of collectors or into museum collections, since they are usually kept in the archive of the relevant mint, but in the numismatic collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum such coins are represented by 4 specimens, coins of different grades from the time of Paul I.

A restrike is a coin made after the prototype of a coin that was rare for numismatists of the late 19th century and struck at a state mint either with the original dies (with a changed edge) or with newly made dies (with changed details of the design or date), in order to distinguish the newly made coin from the original. Coins of this type must also be distinguished from ordinary counterfeits, whose creation has entirely different aims. This subject requires deep knowledge and experience from the researcher and deserves a separate study. An example of a restrike is one of the Sestroretsk roubles of 1771 kept in the collection.

Hoards, including coin hoards, are the most interesting kind of composite find and in most cases carry historical and archaeological value. Most of the hoards in the museum’s collection were found on the territory of Kharkiv Oblast in the 1950s–1960s. They include both copper and silver Russian, Polish and Lithuanian coins of the 17th–18th centuries, as well as coins of 11 khans of the Golden Horde dated to the 14th century. The number of coins in the hoards varies up to about 3,000. The hoards themselves and the process of finding them attract many interested people, and for numismatists they are a separate subject of research.

If we speak of classifying coins by chronological and quantitative principles, it is appropriate to do so using the example of Russian coins of the imperial period, which take up quite a large part of the collection.

Coins minted in the reigns of Peter I (1689–1725), Catherine II (1762–1796), Alexander I (1801–1825), Nicholas I (1825–1855), Alexander II (1855–1881) and Nicholas II (1894–1917) predominate in the collection: this group of coins numbers more than a thousand items. Coins from the times of Catherine I (1725–1727), Peter II (1727–1730), Anna Ioannovna (1730–1740) and Elizabeth Petrovna (1741–1761) number a few dozen, and among the coins minted in the times of Ivan III (1462–1505) and Peter III (1761–1762) the museum holds only 12 and 5 coins respectively. Traditionally, coins were struck in copper, silver and gold, and the collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum keeps one very valuable and rare coin: the “3 roubles” of 1834, made of platinum. This coin is unusual both in its face value and in the material from which it was struck at the St Petersburg Mint, where Russian platinum coins intended for circulation were minted in 1828–1845. The appearance of the platinum coin in Russia is owed to the Ural industrialists the Demidovs. In the 1820s a great deal of this metal was extracted at their mines, but at that time it found no use in industry. The Ural industrialists the Demidovs pushed the treasury to issue platinum coins, and on 24 April 1828 a personal decree on minting a state platinum coin was issued. They were minted until 1845. The “3 roubles” coin made of platinum was equal to a silver chervonets. It was the first and only case when platinum coins were in regular circulation.

The collection also keeps rather unusual heavy coins. We seldom think about the weight and size of a coin. For example, the Soviet bronze kopeck weighed one gram, and the five-kopeck coin five grams. A small silver kopeck of the 16th–17th centuries weighed up to 50 grams. The first and heaviest coins in the history of monetary circulation were the money of the island of Yap, one of the Caroline Islands in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, where for many centuries money took the form of huge stone discs (millstones). The value of such a coin depended on its size. The diameter of a coin reached 3–4 metres. The owner of the coin placed his personal mark on it. These coins went out of circulation only in the early 20th century. But the history of coinage also knew heavy metal coins. Sweden, for example, a country poor in deposits of silver and gold, minted heavy copper coins thanks to its large deposits of copper ore. In the 17th century the so-called “copper plates”, coins in the form of a square or rectangular plate of various sizes, were widespread. The face value of such a coin corresponded to the value of the metal it was made of. These coins first appeared in the country in 1644 under Queen Christina. The coin of the highest face value, 10 daler, measured 33 × 63 cm and weighed 19.7 kg. In the centre of each coin is a stamp indicating the face value and the mint mark, and in the corners four identical stamps with the monarch’s initials and the date. The minting of these coins continued in Sweden until 1776. They were also called unusual and courier money, but for the Kingdom of Sweden such money was an ordinary means of payment and was sometimes exported as metal ingots. For 100 years these coins circulated within the state and played an important role in the trade of Sweden and Finland. At present such coins are extremely rare in museum collections, but the collection of the Kharkiv Historical Museum contains two examples of Swedish rectangular coins: 8 daler of Charles Gustav of 1659 (size 29 × 56 cm) and 2 daler of 1680 (size 22 × 8.5 cm). In the Russian Empire, in the last years of his reign, Peter I became interested in Sweden’s experience of minting plate coins and decided to issue full-value copper plate coins with face values of “1 rouble”, “poltina”, “half-poltina” and “10 roubles” per pood of copper. Preparations for issuing the square plate coins took place at the Katerynburg state mining works, and the first issue of these coins took place in 1725, already after the death of Peter I. The weight of the rouble coins, at a size of 18.5 × 18.5 cm, was about 1,600 kg. But the issue of these coins did not last long: the last plate was struck as early as 1727. The museum’s collection keeps four plate coins: a “half-poltina” of 1725, a “1 rouble” of 1725 and two “poltina” of 1726, recognised as exceptionally rare coins.

The second attempt to mint heavy rouble coins in Russia took place under Catherine II. Their issue was connected with the introduction into circulation of special paper tokens, the so-called assignats, and these roubles were intended to back them. From 1770 such coins were minted at the mint of the Sestroretsk arms factories. A massive coin blank was used for them, weighing about 1 kg, with a diameter of 77 mm and a thickness of 26 mm. Minting these coins caused a number of technological problems. The hardest part of production was preparing the coin blanks. Attempts were made to saw them out of bar copper, but an even cut could not be achieved: the saws heated up and warped. An attempt to use cast blanks was also unsuccessful, because it required considerable costs for subsequent hand finishing. The museum’s collection keeps one typical Sestroretsk rouble of 1771 on a thick blank 6.8 cm in diameter and 2.7 cm thick, which, like the Russian plate coins, is among the extremely rare coins.

The museum collection keeps one more specimen of a Sestroretsk rouble of 1771, which may be considered a newly made coin. This specimen is made on a blank 7.5 cm in diameter and 1.3 cm thick. This coin has its own “secrets” and requires a closer study.

In addition, the museum’s numismatic collection keeps a large number of coins characterising the monetary system of the RSFSR and the USSR (1917–1991). These coins include both coins of regular state minting of various denominations and commemorative and jubilee ones. A characteristic feature of the coinage system of this period is the abandonment in 1931 of precious metals for making coins of regular state minting.

The period of independent Ukraine is at present represented only by small-change coins of regular state minting. We hope that in the future the collection will be supplemented not only with coins of this type but also with commemorative and jubilee coins.