Catalog
1 Rouble Alaska
| Issuer | Russian-American Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1815-1862 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Rouble (1704-1917) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
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| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Central oval guilloche vignette with fine lathe-work engraving contains the denomination inscription in Cyrillic letterpress. Below the oval, a handwritten serial number appears within a plain rectangular panel, beneath which a second rectangular panel carries additional manuscript text. The note is printed on walrus skin parchment, giving the substrate a distinctly pale, irregular surface texture. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | МАРКА ВЪ АМЕРИКЪ 1 РУБ |
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| Comments |
The Russian-American Company's scrip notes are among the most materially unusual objects in the entire field of notaphily. Issued in Russian America for internal company use, they circulated exclusively among company employees, indigenous workers, and traders operating within the RAC's monopoly territory — functionally a truck system enforced by geography. The walrus skin substrate was not an affectation; paper had to be imported at considerable expense and was perpetually in short supply at that latitude.
The RAC's charter was renewed three times before Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, at which point this scrip became immediately worthless. Surviving examples are extremely rare precisely because walrus parchment, while durable, was subject to the same damp storage conditions that destroyed most colonial-era records in the region.