3 Roubles

The State Bank of the Russian Empire began issuing credit notes (kreditnye bilety) from 1860 onward following the bank's formal establishment under Alexander II, replacing the earlier State Assignats that had hemorrhaged value through decades of overprinting. The 3 Rouble denomination sat at the low end of the credit note series and would have passed through ordinary commercial hands constantly — shops, tax payments, petty transactions — meaning genuinely uncirculated survivors from this window are rare without being impossibly scarce.

Paper quality on notes of this period is a known vulnerability; the Russian imperial issues from the 1860s–70s are prone to edge brittleness along fold lines, particularly in the corners.