Catalog
500 Roubles
| Issuer | Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), People's Bank |
|---|---|
| Year | 1918 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Cream paper with a fine diaper guilloche underprint covering the entire field. Large ornate numerals 500 are placed symmetrically at left and right, with the word РУБЛЕЙ printed above and below each, forming a four-corner denomination framework. A central vignette carries a double-headed eagle without crown or regalia, rendered in line-engraved style, flanked by the anti-counterfeiting legend; oval cartouches enclosing 500 appear at top and bottom centre. The whole is enclosed within a decorative border of scrollwork, rosette ornaments, and corner floral medallions. |
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| Protection type | Watermark |
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| Comments |
The People's Bank of the RSFSR was abolished by decree in January 1920, folded into the People's Commissariat of Finance as a simple accounting office — the Bolsheviks at that stage considered banking itself a bourgeois institution slated for eventual elimination. Notes like this 500 Rouble issue were stopgap instruments printed on inherited Tsarist-era Goznak infrastructure while that ideological argument was still being settled.
Severe hyperinflation rendered the entire 1918 rouble series nearly worthless within a few years, and successive redenominations meant most circulated examples were heavily handled before being discarded rather than redeemed.