3 Roubles, Provisional Siberian Government, 1919
Казначейскій знакъ Сибирскаго Временнаго Правительства — Три рубля
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This copy
- Accession
- OM-00028
- Serial
- АА 103
- Series year
- 1919
- Actually issued
- 1919–1920
- manager
- not read uncertain
Handwritten facsimile, legible on the note but not resolved to a name. Compare against a published signature list.
- 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)
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.
- Estimated value
- $9 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-07.
- Dimensions
- 123.1 × 74.5 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- Russian Civil WarWhite movementSiberiaCrownless eagle
The type
- Type
- 3 Roubles, Provisional Siberian Government, 1919
- Printer
- State Bank of Siberia, Omsk
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
Размѣнивается Государственнымъ Банкомъ Сибири на государственные кредитные билеты
Exchangeable at the State Bank of Siberia for State Credit Notes — money whose value is defined by other money, issued by a government with no claim on that money's issuer
Symbology
- Double-headed eagle, crownless
- The same eagle with the crowns, orb and sceptre stripped off - redrawn for the Provisional Government in 1917 by Ivan Bilibin, and nicknamed the 'chicken' for its plucked look. It is a state trying to stay continuous with what came before while disowning the part everyone objected to. The Soviets kept it unchanged for years afterwards.
- 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.
What was happening
The three-rouble Siberian treasury token, printed in olive green and dated 1919. Issued by the Provisional Siberian Government at Omsk — the anti-Bolshevik administration that Admiral Kolchak absorbed in his November 1918 coup and ran until his capture and execution in early 1920.
The text makes the note's whole predicament explicit: this treasury token is exchangeable by the State Bank of Siberia for State Credit Notes. It is money whose value is defined by other money, issued by a government whose claim to that other money's issuer had no legal basis at all. The imperial double-headed eagle is retained, crownless, exactly as the Provisional Government left it.
These circulated across a vast, thinly held territory along the Trans-Siberian railway, competing with Soviet notes, imperial notes, Far Eastern issues and outright barter. They died with the Omsk government.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 3 Roubles, Provisional Siberian Government, 1919 in the collection.
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