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10 Kopecks
| Issuer | Russian-American Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1816-1852 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Shape | Other (Oval) |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | МАРКА ВЪ АМЕРИКЪ 10 КОП |
| Reverse description | Central oval stamp impression of the Russian-American Company seal, showing a double-headed eagle with spread wings under the Imperial crown, surrounded by circular Cyrillic legend. Below the seal, a rectangular panel bears the denomination spelled out in full in Cyrillic script. |
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| Comments |
The Russian-American Company operated as a chartered monopoly with quasi-governmental authority over Russian Alaska, and its scrip functioned as the only practical currency across a territory where hard coin rarely arrived and barter was the default. These notes — if "notes" is even the right word for them — were issued on walrus hide, a material chosen not for novelty but because paper simply didn't survive the conditions of coastal Alaska. The Company controlled both the supply and the redemption, which meant workers and indigenous traders had little choice but to accept them.
No commercial printer was involved. Production was local and artisanal, which accounts for the considerable variation in surviving examples. The series ran across several decades and multiple reissue cycles, making precise dating of individual pieces genuinely difficult.