25 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1909

This copy

Accession

OM-00008

Series year

1909

Actually issued

1912–1917

manager

I. P. Shipov (И. Шиповъ) certain

cashier

not read uncertain

Handwritten facsimile, legible on the note but not resolved to a name. Compare against a published signature list.

Grade

VF (IBNS)

Clean and bright, light handling. Estimated from the archival scan. Folds, soiling and edge condition are visible at this resolution; paper crispness, pinholes, small repairs and pressing are not. Serial not located on the obverse scan; the visible light lettering is the watermark. Read it from the note in hand.

Estimated value

$6 indicative

Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-07.

Dimensions

179.3 × 108.3 mm (±0.8, from the scan)

Themes

Monarch portraitGold standardImperial collapse

The type

Type

25 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1909

Portrait

Alexander III (r. 1881–1894)

Printer

Expedition for the Preparation of State Papers (EZGB), St Petersburg / Petrograd

Watermark

Portrait of Alexander III

Rarity

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

Portrait of Alexander III

The reigning tsar's father, under whom the Franco-Russian alliance and the great wave of French investment began. On a banknote, that is a statement about creditworthiness.

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

Alexander III looks out of this note in full dress uniform, and the choice is pointed. He was the reigning tsar's father, the architect of the reaction that followed his own father's assassination, and — crucially for a banknote — the sovereign under whom the Franco-Russian alliance and the great wave of French investment began. Putting him on the 25 was a statement about creditworthiness as much as about dynasty.

The note belongs to the 1909 family that carried the empire's paper currency from the confident years into the collapse. Its gradient printing, pink through green, was technically ambitious for its day and hard to counterfeit; it is also why worn examples fade so distinctively, the rose end of the sheet going first.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 25 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1909 in the collection.