500 Roubles, RSFSR, series 1918

Государственный кредитный билетъ

very common

What was happening

A raschetny znak promises nothing but "the entire property of the Republic". There is no gold clause, no exchange undertaking, no signature of a bank manager — only a People's Commissar and a cashier. It is the paper of a state that had stopped pretending its money was a claim on anything.

These were printed to keep a war economy moving while the currency collapsed underneath it. Denominations climbed by orders of magnitude within months, and the 1922–24 reform eventually swept the whole issue away.

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.

Rarity

Very common. Catalogue reference not yet confirmed against a specialist catalogue of the Civil War issues.

500 Roubles, RSFSR, series 1918

What was happening

1 copy in the collection