Sale: Triton IX, Lot: 2081. Estimate $40000.  Closing Date: Monday, 9 January 2006.  Sold For $57500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

RUSSIA. Catherine II, the Great. 1762-1796. Æ Novodel "Sestroretsk" Ruble (76mm diameter, 26mm thick, 1018.4 g, 12h). Sestroretsk mint. Dated 1771, re-struck in the 1840's and 1850's. Crowned double-headed imperial eagle, holding sceptre and orb, shield with date 1771 on breast; crown between heads, all within wreath / Crown above; all within wreath. Edge inscription 1. Brekke p. 170, 316-317 (this coin illustrated, but the edge inscriptions shown for 316 and 317 on the following pages are not this coin); Michaïlovitch 238; Uzdenikov 4092; KM NA110. EF, brown patina, the obverse double struck. A classic rarity of Russian coinage. ($40,000)

Ex Gorny 86 (15-16 October 1997), lot 2257; B. Brekke Collection (Elmen 18 November 1993), lot 1512; Söderman Collection (Hess-Leu 30, 7 November 1968), lot 240.

Catherine's government authorised an issue of paper assignats in 1769 to finance military operations in Poland and elsewhere. This paper currency, which totaled over 10 million rubles by 1771, was to be redeemed for copper coinage only, which would have required a tremendous coinage of standard 5 kopek pieces. Copper rubles were proposed to alleviate the stress on the mint, and the arms manufactory at Sestroretsk was dedicated to the striking of these massive copper coins. Technical problems proved insurmountable, however, the principle difficulty being the inability to produce a uniform flan that did not require extensive handwork to prepare for striking. In any case the idea for the copper ruble was abandoned in short order, and today only three original Sestroretsk rubles survive (two in the Hermitage Museum, one in the Smithsonian). In the 1840's and 1850's the original dies were brought out of storage and used to produce "novodels" or restrikes for collectors. Fewer than fifty specimens of the restrikes are known, with about twenty examples in private hands, of which this is one of the finest. Two varieties of edge inscription are illustrated by Brekke; this piece is type 1, without the heavy die breaks shown in Brekke 316.