Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
3 Roubles Northern Camps
| Issuer | USSR Chief Administration of the Northern Camps (GULAG) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1937 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | 90 × 65 mm |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Printed entirely in green on plain cream paper, the obverse is enclosed within a decorative typeset border composed of repeating geometric motifs — circles, stars, squares, and diamonds — arranged along all four sides. The issuing authority inscription appears in three lines at the upper centre, above the large curved legend РАСЧЕТНЫЙ ЧЕК in bold letterpress. The large numeral 3 occupies the central field, with the denomination spelled out in full below, followed by the date -1937- at the foot. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | СССР главное управление северных лагерей РАСЧЕТНЫЙ ЧЕК 3 ТРИ РУБЛЯ -1937- (Translation: USSR Chief Administration of the Northern Camps COMMISSARY CHEQUE 3 THREE ROUBLES -1937-) |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
| Protection type | Log in to see details |
| Protection description | Log in to see details |
| Variants | Log in to see details |
| Comments |
GULAG camp scrip occupies one of the more uncomfortable corners of Soviet numismatics. These notes were issued for use within the corrective labor camp system administered by the NKVD — not as wages in any meaningful sense, but as an internal accounting mechanism. Prisoners assigned to certain categories of work received small allocations redeemable at camp canteens for tobacco, soap, or marginal food supplements. The system was partly ideological: it allowed the administration to frame forced labor as compensated.
The 1937 date places this squarely in the height of the Great Terror. Documentation on surviving examples is sparse, and provenance is almost never traceable.