10 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1909

Государственный кредитный билетъ — Десять рублей

Reverse of 10 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1909 — Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession: OM-00007
Serial: ЦЦ 447086
Series year: 1909
Actually issued: 1912–1917
manager: I. P. Shipov (И. Шиповъ) certain
cashier: L. Baryshev (Л. Барышевъ) probable
Read at 600 dpi.
Grade: F (IBNS)
Soiling, edge wear, corner damage lower left. Estimated from the archival scan. Folds, soiling and edge condition are visible at this resolution; paper crispness, pinholes, small repairs and pressing are not.
Estimated value: $4 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-07.
Dimensions: 104.5 × 176.8 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes: Guilloche Gold standard WWI finance Imperial collapse

The type

Type: 10 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1909
Printer: Expedition for the Preparation of State Papers (EZGB), St Petersburg / Petrograd
Rarity: very common

Inscriptions

Obverse — the gold promise

Государственный банкъ размѣниваетъ кредитные билеты на золотую монету безъ ограниченія суммы (1 р. = 1/15 имперіала, содержитъ 17,424 доли чистаго золота)

The State Bank exchanges credit notes for gold coin without limit of sum (1 rouble = 1/15 imperial, containing 17.424 dolya of pure gold)

Reverse — the counterfeiting penalty

За подделку кредитныхъ билетовъ виновные подвергаются лишенію всѣхъ правъ состоянія и ссылкѣ въ каторжную работу

Counterfeiters are subject to deprivation of all rights of estate and exile to penal labour

Symbology

Double-headed eagle, crowned: The Romanov arms in full: two crowned heads under a third imperial crown, holding orb and sceptre, with St George slaying the dragon on the breast shield. The two heads face east and west - a claim, inherited from Byzantium, to authority over both.
Guilloche: The dense interlaced line-work filling the field. Engine-turned on a geometric lathe, it was the era's principal anti-counterfeiting device: reproducible only with the same machine and impossible to draw freehand or photograph cleanly.
Gold-standard wording in an ornamental cartouche: The redemption promise is given its own decorative frame rather than being set as small print. On a note designed to advertise convertibility, the promise is the ornament.

What was happening

The ten-rouble note — the krasnenkaya, "little red one" — was the workhorse of pre-war middle-class life, and the note most Russians pictured when they thought of money. Its rose and red printing was deliberate: colour was a security feature and a branding one, and the name stuck for decades after the note itself was worthless.

It shares the fate of the whole 1909 family. Issued under Konshin with the gold clause meaning what it said, reprinted under Shipov through the war years with the clause meaning nothing, and finally circulating through 1917 and into the Civil War alongside Provisional Government and Soviet paper. The Bolsheviks kept printing from imperial plates well into 1918–19, so a "1909" ten-rouble note may have been physically made under three different governments.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 10 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1909 in the collection.

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