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4½ Roubles Irkutsk
| Issuer | State Commission for Repayment of the Public Debt (Государственная Комиссия Погашения Долгов) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1917 |
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| Value | 4 Roubles 50 Kopecks (4.50) |
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| Obverse description | Coupon note in brown and cream tones, with a guilloche border frame and ornamental side panels. The central text block in Cyrillic states that the bearer of this coupon from a 200-rouble State Internal 4½% Lottery Loan of 1917 is to receive four roubles fifty kopecks, free of tax on income from monetary capital; the denomination panel at right reads «4 РУБЛЯ 50 КОП.» in a ruled box. The date «16 ФЕВРАЛЯ 1928 ГОДА» appears at top right, with series, number, and coupon number fields filled in, and the signature of the Manager of the State Commission for Repayment of the Public Debt at the lower left, with the imprint AMERICAN BANK NOTE CO. at the bottom margin. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse is printed in brown on cream paper, with a large ornate guilloche panel filling the entire surface. Symmetrical foliate scroll vignettes occupy the left and right margins, flanking a central oval cartouche with fine lathe-work underprint that bears the large numeral «20» in bold serif figures. The imprint «American Bank Note Co.» appears in small lettering beneath the central cartouche. |
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| Comments |
The State Commission for Repayment of the Public Debt was a tsarist-era institution repurposed under the Provisional Government to manage an increasingly unmanageable financial situation. These Irkutsk notes were part of a broader emergency regionalization of currency supply in Siberia — getting physical notes to areas that far east of Petrograd was itself a logistical problem, and American Bank Note Company had been supplying Russia with printed currency since well before the war.
The 4½ rouble denomination is the oddity here. Fractional rouble notes emerged from a wartime coin shortage that began in 1915, when silver and copper disappeared from circulation almost immediately after mobilization. By 1917, the denomination had acquired its own administrative momentum.