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5 Kopecks

Issuer Russian Empire Treasury
Year 1915
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Shape Rectangular
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Reverse description Blue and black letterpress note with a fine guilloche underprint throughout. The full Imperial Russian coat of arms — the elaborate double-headed eagle with shield and regalia — is printed at centre, flanked symmetrically by bold denomination numerals '5' at upper left and upper right, with the abbreviated denomination 'КОП.' in large letters at mid left and mid right. An anti-counterfeiting legend runs along the lower portion of the field, and the design is framed by the same Greek-key meander border as the obverse.
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Protection type Watermark
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Comments

Issued by the Russian Imperial Treasury rather than the State Bank, these small-denomination treasury notes were a direct response to the near-total disappearance of silver and copper coinage from circulation after August 1914. Hoarding stripped the market of small change almost immediately upon the outbreak of war, and the government's solution — printing postage stamp-sized paper notes in kopeck denominations — was widely mocked but grudgingly accepted.

The reverse carries text explicitly stating these notes circulate on par with silver coinage. Few believed it.

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