1 Chervonets, USSR, 1937
Билетъ Государственнаго Банка СССР — Один червонец
Loading the detail view…
Scroll or pinch to zoom · drag to pan · Esc to close
This copy
- Accession
- OM-00037
- Serial
- НС 569508
- Series year
- 1937
- Actually issued
- 1937–1947
- Signatures
- This issue carries no bank manager or cashier signature.
- Grade
- VG (IBNS)
Folds, soiling, general 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
- $2 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-07.
- Dimensions
- 159 × 79.9 mm (±0.6, from the scan)
- Themes
- Soviet UnionLenin portraitChervonetsGosbank
The type
- Type
- 1 Chervonets, USSR, 1937
- Portrait
- V. I. Lenin
- Printer
- Goznak, Moscow
- Rarity
- common
Inscriptions
Банковые билеты обеспечиваются золотом, драгоценными металлами и прочими активами Государственного банка
Bank notes are secured by gold, precious metals and the other assets of the State Bank — the promise that ended the hyperinflation
Symbology
- Portrait of Lenin
- The first Soviet note to carry Lenin's head, thirteen years after his death. It fixed the image on Soviet money until 1991.
- Soviet arms
- Hammer and sickle crossed over a globe in a wreath of wheat, with a rising sun behind - industry and agriculture, the world as the field of action, and the sunrise of a new order. It replaced the eagle entirely rather than editing it.
- Denomination in the union languages
- Repeated once for each union republic, so the number of languages on a Soviet note records how many republics the union claimed at the time of printing.
What was happening
The chervonets was the currency that ended the hyperinflation. Introduced in 1922 and nominally backed by gold, it circulated alongside the collapsing rouble until the 1924 reform retired the old money altogether — a deliberate two-currency strategy that let a hard unit establish itself before the soft one was killed.
This 1937 issue is the first to carry Lenin's portrait, thirteen years after his death, and it set the pattern: every subsequent Soviet high denomination bore the same head, in the same three-quarter view, until 1991.
Its date is not incidental. 1937 is the year of the Great Terror, and several of the officials whose signatures appear on the notes in this collection — Pyatakov, Krestinsky — were shot within about a year of it.
This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 1 Chervonets, USSR, 1937 in the collection.
Print an album label for this note →
← → to move between notes