100 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1910

Государственный кредитный билетъ — Сто рублей

Reverse of 100 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1910 — Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession: OM-00010
Serial: ЛФ 140863
Series year: 1910
Actually issued: 1912–1917
manager: I. P. Shipov (И. Шиповъ) probable
Reads as Shipov, consistent with the late printing. Confirm against a signature chart.
cashier: Ya. Metz (Я. Метцъ) uncertain
Partially legible; consistent with the Metz signature on OM-00003, but the crop clipped it.
Grade: F (IBNS)
Vertical fold, soiling, edge wear. 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: $20 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-07.
Dimensions: 259 × 124.2 mm (±0.9, from the scan)
Themes: Monarch portrait Gold standard Art Nouveau Imperial collapse

The type

Type: 100 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1910
Portrait: Catherine II (r. 1762–1796)
Printer: Expedition for the Preparation of State Papers (EZGB), St Petersburg / Petrograd
Watermark: Portrait of Catherine II
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 Catherine II: The 'Katinka'. Catherine presides over an Art Nouveau composition of extraordinary technical ambition, with her portrait repeated as a watermark.
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 Katinka is the most beautiful object the Russian imperial press produced, and at 260 by 122 millimetres it is nearly the size of a sheet of paper. Catherine the Great presides over an Art Nouveau composition of extraordinary technical ambition — multi-colour intaglio, a portrait watermark, guilloche so fine it defeated contemporary photographic reproduction.

It was also a deliberate argument. A state that could print this could not, the note implies, be one whose paper you should doubt. Issued from 1910, reprinted under Shipov through the war, it was still legal tender in name until the Soviet decree of September 1922 formally killed the imperial issues on 1 October that year.

By then a hundred pre-war roubles bought nothing at all. The note outlived its own purchasing power by several orders of magnitude, which is precisely why so many survived: at a certain point it was not worth the trouble of spending, and people kept them in drawers instead.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 100 Roubles, Russian Empire, series 1910 in the collection.

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