500 Roubles, Armed Forces of South Russia, 1920

This copy

Accession

OM-00070

Serial

АЗ 079

Series year

1920

Actually issued

1920

head_of_finance

M. V. Bernatsky (М. Бернацкій) probable

Engraved facsimile, identical across the VSYUR notes. Bernatsky headed the finance administration of the Armed Forces of South Russia, having been the Provisional Government's last finance minister.

head_of_credit

F. Nikiforov (Ф. Никифоровъ) probable

Engraved facsimile, identical across the VSYUR notes. Read at 600 dpi.

Grade

VF (IBNS)

Clean, 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

155.6 × 75.6 mm (±0.5, from the scan)

Themes

Russian Civil WarWhite movementRostov-on-Don

The type

Type

500 Roubles, Armed Forces of South Russia, 1920

Printer

Not established

Rarity

common

Inscriptions

Obverse — compulsory acceptance

Обязателенъ къ пріему во всѣхъ платежахъ въ казну и между частными лицами

Compulsory in all payments to the treasury and between private persons

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.

Allegorical figures and classical architecture

Seated figures, columns and laurel - the visual vocabulary of legitimate statehood, deployed by a command that held territory but no recognised state.

What was happening

A treasury note of the High Command of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia — the White armies under Denikin and then Wrangel — printed at Rostov-on-Don under M. V. Bernatsky, the Provisional Government's last finance minister.

Its value tracked the front line. As the White advance collapsed through the winter of 1919–20 these depreciated to nothing, and they died completely with the evacuation from the Crimea in November 1920.

This account belongs to the type, not this copy — it is shared by every 500 Roubles, Armed Forces of South Russia, 1920 in the collection.