3 Kopecks

The Soviet postage stamp money issues of 1924 occupy a peculiar corner of monetary history. Following the near-total collapse of the ruble under War Communism and the hyperinflation that followed, the early USSR resorted to stamp-currency as a stopgap while the State Bank rebuilt a credible monetary base under the New Economic Policy. These 3-kopeck notes were essentially postage stamps mounted on cardboard-backed paper, issued in lieu of fractional coinage that simply did not exist in sufficient quantity.

The chronic small-change shortage was severe enough that the Soviet government explicitly authorized postage stamps as legal tender — a measure with tsarist precedent, as Nicholas II had done the same thing during World War I when silver disappeared from circulation.