25 Roubles, RSFSR, series 1918

Государственный кредитный билетъ — Двадцать пять рублей

Reverse of 25 Roubles, RSFSR, series 1918 — Reverse 600 dpi

This copy

Accession: OM-00067
Serial: АБ 231
Series year: 1918
Actually issued: 1918
manager: G. L. Pyatakov (Г. Пятаковъ) certain
cashier: not read uncertain
Legible but not resolved to a name; compare against a signature chart.
Grade: F (IBNS)
Moderate 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: $3 indicative
Category benchmark scaled for grade — an order of magnitude, not an appraisal. Priced 2026-09-07.
Dimensions: 134.1 × 82.5 mm (±0.5, from the scan)
Themes: Russian Civil War Provisional Government design Hyperinflation Crownless eagle Pyatakov signature

The type

Type: 25 Roubles, RSFSR, series 1918
Printer: Goznak (Expedition for the Preparation of State Papers), Petrograd and Moscow
Rarity: very common

Inscriptions

Reverse — the counterfeiting penalty

Подделка кредитныхъ билетовъ преслѣдуется по закону

Counterfeiting of credit notes is prosecuted by law

Symbology

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.
«Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!»: 'Workers of the world, unite!' - printed on money, and on the larger notes repeated in German, French, Italian, English, Arabic and Chinese. A currency addressed to people who would never hold it.
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

Fifty roubles — a substantial sum in 1917 when the plate was cut, and small change by the time the note reached the public.

These notes are a political fossil. They were designed under the Provisional Government in 1917, intended for release in 1918 — hence the date on their face — and then overtaken by the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks inherited the finished plates and, needing money far more than they needed new artwork, simply used them. The notes finally entered circulation in May 1919, dated 1918, issued by a state that had not existed when they were drawn.

The compromise is visible in the eagle. It is double-headed, as it had been for four centuries, but the crowns, the orb and the sceptre are gone — stripped by the Provisional Government to make a Russia that was neither imperial nor yet anything else. The Soviet government left it exactly as it found it. For several years the currency of the world's first socialist state carried the coat of arms of the Romanovs with the regalia filed off.

They are known as Pyatakovki, after Georgy Leonidovich Pyatakov, whose signature as Manager appears on every one. He ran the People's Bank of the RSFSR, sided with the Left Opposition, was expelled and readmitted to the Party more than once, and was convicted and shot in 1937 during the second Moscow show trial. His signature outlasted him by decades on paper that had itself been worthless since 1922.

The gold clause is still printed on the face — the State Bank exchanges these for gold coin without limit of sum. By 1919 that was not merely void but absurd: hyperinflation was already running, and within three years the whole issue would be swept away by the currency reform of 1922–24.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 25 Roubles, RSFSR, series 1918 in the collection.

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