How to bite the ruble with silver?

PLN 10 with Józef Bem, inconspicuous, crumpled, torn ... But immediately or wasn't it about silver rubles?

I started my adventure with numismatics with this sheltered, inconspicuous and torn banknote with the image of Józef Bem. Putting him for the first time, I was convinced of its rarity and significant value. The reality during a visit to the antique shop turned out to be the opposite ... But how is it without value? sentimental value? Such disappointment experiences many people after finding a "old" coin or banknote. Such disappointments are almost everyday life in every company related to numismatics. In my case, however, the visit was gone in the opposite direction. The possibility of collecting the entire issue that reminded me of my childhood and its availability in beautiful banking states pushed me towards collecting. Of course, there were 2 million dreams with the error of "Constitutions" or 500,000 marks from 1993. AA series. But obtaining them was only a matter of a bit of time and finance. Well, but it was supposed to be with silver rubles, undoubtedly the rarest Polish banknotes next to PLN 1 emission from the Kingdom of Poland.

In my opinion, this introduction illustrates one of the greatest regularities in numismatics. We usually start collecting what can simply be collected, what is available and relatively nicely preserved. This explains to a large extent the famous bull market and "SLR" Bessa or the huge popularity of the low -format last issue of the banknotes of the Polish People's Republic. Of course, we cannot miss the financial factor but for the needs of this article, let's try to gently marginalize it. Over time, we begin to broaden our horizons and we stop being afraid of other rarer, more difficult topics where this book knowledge is often not enough to be a conscious collector. The nose and experience begin to count. And at this point you could ask how to bite the silver ruble? Why so many people are so eager to collect insurrection banknotes or thalers from the Duchy of Warsaw and skip silver rubles all in all, not to mention the zloty emissions from the Kingdom of Poland. Yes, collecting all rubles with silver, every year, every combination of signatures seems to be an unattainable task and it is probably like that. Even the biggest known Lucow collection has deficiencies in this topic, and if every nominement and rubles of the rubles to be divided with the signatures of the bank's directors, it can be easily said that the Lucow collection is more lacking than there is in this topic. And yet every more experienced collector browsing the Lucow collections will be delighted and stopped at this section. Years of collecting and conversations with collectors have confirmed me that a good collection is met by the best positions and not by their quantity. We all overlook the financial factor all the time, but I think that largely silver rubles are omitted in advance due to their inaccessibility and the inability to acquire practical knowledge based on real quotations than just because of the financial aspect. Many people already assume that rubles cannot be collected. There is also a fashion that, in my opinion, has been a wide arc for years, because how to explain the records of individual rubles with silver at the level of insurrection banknotes. Market rights are inexorable and although the supply of rubles is negligible, the demand for them does not even match the demand for the banknotes of the Kościuszko Uprising.

So let's bite the rubel with silver. Let's start with the question of why silver rubles are so rare? Why the acquisition of a banking hundred insurreats is a matter of a year or two and putting a five -digit amount and getting a few rubles with silver without going into finance can be a task for several thick years. Silver ruble, unlike insurrection banknotes, ceased to be part of the monetary system in a natural way, i.e. without financial factors such as hyperinflation, which affected the Polish interwar brand or wars, as in the case of banknotes of the Kościuszko Uprising. These banknotes throughout their lives had a purchasing value (on demand exchanged for silver) and, most importantly, they were exchanged for a long time. For example, the last year of the silver ruble from 1866 was in circulation until 1874 but the exchange was possible for another year, i.e. until 1875. In other words, there was time to get rid of rubles and exchange them for new cash and this process was not violent as in the case of such willingly cited by me, tax tickets from the Kościuszko Uprising period.

Well, we know that silver rubles are rare due to their natural and calm way of withdrawing from circulation and exchange. Such knowledge, however, will not bring us much use from a practical point of view. Such a conclusion can be made after a short observation of the numismatic market in Poland. By studying available literature, we can rely on various catalog valuations but in my opinion they do not bring much, valuations and rarity levels "R" are very generalized and do not have great transfer to reality. Therefore, it is difficult to assess which years are rarer, hence for the needs of this article we collected all the copies known to us with the denomination of one silver ruble. We reviewed and wrote down all the quotations of well -known auction houses in Poland, all copies described in the Lucow collection, illustrated in the Czesław Miłczak catalog and our archive where I have been noticing other copies for over ten years. There is one condition, each copy must be written from the number to exclude duplication of a given copy. The effect of our research is illustrated by the table below:

Although the above table naturally does not include all existing copies, based on its results, we can draw several objective conclusions. First of all, rubles are really extremely rare! The fact of noting only over a hundred copies shows how difficult but at the same time how prestigious this challenge is. Interestingly, the number of quotations of three rubles with silver oscillates within only 25-30 copies where the GROWS are copies from 1841 and 1858. Were it not for the sale of Lucow collection many rubles with silver would never have its official listing! For example, for today only one contemporary nominal records of 10 rubles with silver (PLN 181,000 from 2012 WCN auction) I admit that I am looking forward to this moment.

                         Returning to our one Rublówek, we can draw a few more conclusions. Looking at the tables, we can easily see that a few years stand out against the rest of the rest, hence for simplicity I would divide these years into three rarity groups. Rare years are 1847, 1858 and 1866. When dealing with silver rubles, the results of the above research have not been a big surprise for many years. If we hit the green ruble, it will be a high probability of 1847, and if on orange it is the year 1858 and a slightly lower scope of 1866. Very rare years are 1851, 1852, 1855, 1856 and 1864 where we did not record more than 10 copies. Extremely rare years are 1849,1853,1854 and 1857. If it wasn't for the sale of the Lucow collection, we would never get the 1854 list. Two years deserve a special distinction. Year 1849 so far I have not found his official listing and the only copies we noticed were those illustrated in the catalog of Czesław Miłczak. There is no this year even in the Lucow collection. Yes, I personally met this year, but I do not have a serial number so I did not include it in the table above to avoid any duplication. At the end of the year 1857. Apparently orange rubles are definitely more accessible than green but the rarest is a copy from 1857, we only noted one copy from the Lucow collection, which is also illustrated in the catalog of Czesław Miłczak. This is the only year that I have not seen with my own eyes and for now you can safely attribute a patch of "unique".

There is one more issue in the case of rubles with silver worth raising, i.e. the issue of behavior. Collecting banknotes from the period of the Kingdom of Poland is undoubtedly an occupation for those who approach this issue with a great distance. Getting a copy in the first state borders on a miracle, and copies in real states of the second have just met a few pieces. You can easily simplify that the real third state in the case of silver rubles is like the first state in the case of 20th century banknotes. With silver rubles, you should not be discouraged from maintenance. Although I try to understand the arguments of both sides in the discussion about the purposefulness of maintenance, in the case of many rubles with silver, this treatment is an absolute necessity, provided that it is performed by a person not only with knowledge but sensitivity so that the end result is not plastic, artificial. The paper used for printing rubles with silver is extremely thin, reminiscent of its delicacy tissue, hence you can often find copies where the paper is even scattered in your hands and in such situations maintenance is even a necessity that is to protect further degradation of paper. This does not change the fact that the most desirable will always be a copy without human interference which does not require maintenance. Above, we illustrated two representatives of the same year (photos with arrows), where the copy on the left is fully natural, and the one on the right after maintenance. Maintenance in the case of this copy was clearly only intended to improve aesthetic values ​​and I would now be willing to state that in this case it did not increase the attractiveness of this copy. Analyzing whether a given copy has been corrected, we always start by looking under the light where we often see characteristic supplementations with paper mass (photo against the light). As I mentioned in such cases, conservation is purposeful and made with sensitivity will be an advantage. Returning to the photo with arrows, we can see two more significant differences. The natural copy on the left has clear fracture lines with a characteristic hump, and the copy after maintenance on the right has these fractures as if "put" in paper, we do not
see characteristic humps, we will only notice a damaged structure of paper on the fracture line closely. This is the effect of the press that conservators use. Another characteristic difference will be the dry stamp of the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Poland. In a natural copy it is quite visible, the copy after maintenance has only the outlines of the stamp, which have also been "put" in paper. It is necessary to be careful at this point because professional conservators are able to secure this element so that the impact of maintenance on it is as low as possible. It is also worth paying attention to the colors. Green copies after maintenance often become more blue, turquoise. I immediately explain that there are no blue rubles with silver.

At the same time, with orange copies, we can notice a clearer brightening of print but in this case it should be taken into account that even natural silver rubles can be quite significantly different in color intensity, so not every brighter copy must mean maintenance. Of course, there is a question of paper but without experience it will be difficult to assess whether a given copy had contact with water. Any wavy and heaviness in hand can mean contact with water but do not prejudge the maintenance. For the purposes of the article, we attached photos of what a dry stamp should look with one and three silver rubles. I would include copies with such a well -preserved dry stamp as "beautiful" which deserve more appreciation regardless of the technical condition.

Summing up collecting rubles with silver is a task for several generations, an extremely difficult task but also prestigious at the same time. When collecting this period, you should not exaggerately approach the behavior states, our analysis showed that it can be extremely difficult to exchange for a better exchange. I think that every advanced collection of Polish paper money should have a representative of this period, preferably in both color versions without penetrating the years. Collecting most years is a feasible task especially with a nominal nominal. Talking to collectors who are skeptical about this period, I advise you to approach them in this way. Yes, it would be ideal to put three silver rubles in the collection in both graphic versions, i.e. from 1841 and 1858 (the other years and higher denominations are practically unattainable) but although the fashion ruble by silver avoids broadly with higher denominations we have to count with more serious expenses. The purpose of this articles was to familiarize the rubles with silver from the practical side and to pay attention to how valuable and rare these are values. I hope that at least partially managed to achieve this goal and a small curiosity, three rubles in pieces.