1 Rouble, USSR, 1938

This copy

Accession

OM-00058

Serial

мл 483489

Series year

1938

Actually issued

1938

Signatures

This issue carries no bank manager or cashier signature.

Grade

VG (IBNS)

Soiling, heavy 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

122.7 × 60.3 mm (±0.5, from the scan)

Themes

Soviet UnionSocialist realismCoal miner

The type

Type

1 Rouble, USSR, 1938

Portrait

A coal miner

Printer

Goznak

Rarity

very common

Inscriptions

Obverse — what stands behind it

Билеты Государственного Банка обеспечиваются золотом, драгоценными металлами и прочими активами Государственного банка

State Bank notes are secured by gold, precious metals and the other assets of the State Bank

Symbology

A coal miner

The 1938 series replaced allegory with labour: a miner, a soldier, an aviator. Socialist realism arriving on the currency.

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 sovznak of 1922 and 1923 is the last act of the hyperinflation. Two redenominations ran in quick succession — 1922 knocked four zeros off, 1923 another two — while the gold- backed chervonets was introduced alongside to do the real work. For about two years the Soviet Union ran two currencies at once: a hard one for accounting and trade, and this one, which people spent before it lost more value.

The 1924 reform retired the sovznak for good at 50,000 to one against the new rouble.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 1 Rouble, USSR, 1938 in the collection.