Weirdest find I ever found.

[jnicholes]

We were moving boxes in my house, mainly boxes that belong to my grandparents. While I was moving boxes, this fell out.



It appeared to be a book of some kind, so I opened it up. To my surprise, I found this inside.

A bunch of USSR coins and bills with certificates of authenticity!

How my grandpa got these, I’ll never know. I’ll probably never know anyway because of dementia.

We keep finding interesting things in their stuff, so I bet there will be more interesting things coming.

 

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[Digger RJ]

We were moving boxes in my house, mainly boxes that belong to my grandparents. While I was moving boxes, this fell out.

View attachment 2112548

It appeared to be a book of some kind, so I opened it up. To my surprise, I found this inside.

View attachment 2112549

View attachment 2112550

View attachment 2112551

View attachment 2112552

A bunch of USSR coins and bills with certificates of authenticity!

How my grandpa got these, I’ll never know. I’ll probably never know anyway because of dementia.

We keep finding interesting things in their stuff, so I bet there will be more interesting things coming.

Very Cool!!! Congrats!!!

 

[robertk]

That's really neat. Good find, even if it was accidental.

 

[jeff of pa]

They Run as High as $75 on Ebay but no Takers

 

[Blackfoot58]

These were sold through various venues. The currency was basically devalued to nothing. Enterprising individuals sold it as a historical item.
Yours might be from that time.
I believe they have very low value.
Might be a good keepsake for a collector. 👍🏼

 

[ARC]

Cool find... but word of advice... these sets were packed in PVC plastics... which is the WORST material to do so in. (this was very common early on with a majority of coin sets)
They need to be removed from this ASAP and placed in 2x2 coin flips that are NON PVC and kept separate from the book.
This is of course IF you are going to keep them.

PS... the damage has begun... this is evident of the copper / brass versions being that dark color with slight greening.
They really should be correctly cleaned and free on any PVC residue before re-storing... otherwise spreading and continued deterioration will occur.

 

[E-Trac-Ohio]

Very nice !

 

[jewelerguy]

probably wasn't enough there to buy a slice of bread in the receiving lines under soviet rule. Interesting collection though

 

[Kona Koma]

We were moving boxes in my house, mainly boxes that belong to my grandparents. While I was moving boxes, this fell out.

View attachment 2112548

It appeared to be a book of some kind, so I opened it up. To my surprise, I found this inside.

View attachment 2112549

View attachment 2112550

View attachment 2112551

View attachment 2112552

A bunch of USSR coins and bills with certificates of authenticity!

How my grandpa got these, I’ll never know. I’ll probably never know anyway because of dementia.

We keep finding interesting things in their stuff, so I bet there will be more interesting things coming.

Some real history behind that find.

 

[Red-Coat]

probably wasn't enough there to buy a slice of bread in the receiving lines under soviet rule. Interesting collection though

Interesting pieces of history @jnicholes

To make a judgement about purchasing power of the ruble (divided into 100 kopecks) in those days you have to take salaries into account. Both salaries and prices for consumer goods were state-controlled. In the 1980s, prior to the dissolution of the USSR, a skilled worker without qualifications might be paid around 200 rubles a month and a university professor might get around 500 rubles. A month’s rent for a family-size state-owned apartment was maybe around 20 rubles; dinner for two with wine in a decent restaurant would have cost you about 5 rubles; a half-litre bottle of local beer would have been around 40 kopecks; a small loaf of bread around 7 kopecks; and a short bus or tram ride around 5 kopecks.

Even after taking the massive difference in salaries into account, exchange rates versus the dollar are pretty meaningless for comparison purposes since the economy of the USSR was virtually cut off from the West, and the ruble wasn’t a ‘convertible’ currency on the forex markets. For a visitor, buying rubles was largely confined to exchange at official stations after arrival in the Soviet Union, with a manipulated official rate that was internally propped up as and when needed. There was a thriving black market offering much better rates if you had Western currency and were prepared for the possibility of being arrested (or having to pay a large bribe).

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation continued to use the ruble, as did the 15 post-Soviet states until they were able to issue their own currencies. Within Russia, the old Soviet ruble was replaced by the Russian Ruble (RUR) at 1:1 parity in 1992 with redesigned coins and then redesigned notes in 1993 to make the distinction.

The post-USSR Russian Federation’s economy was progressively crippled by uncontrolled inflation, which had reached about 84% in mid-1998, with the ruble dropping to a theoretical value around US$1 = 6,000 RUR. Small denomination currency had disappeared from circulation as virtually worthless. Defaulting on its debts, Russia was forced to devalue the RUR and redenominate it at an equivalence of 1,000:1 in August 1998.



[As a little aside, one of my friends went to teach English in a Russian school before the disintegration of the USSR. The other teachers resolutely refused to believe that he had bought a small house in England, or many of the other things he told them. One day in the staff-room, he removed his contact lenses for cleaning. He noticed it had suddenly gone very quiet and, when he looked around, everyone was staring at him with their mouths open. There was an excited exchange of views during which it was claimed that contact lenses were a very recent Russian invention and not available elsewhere, that the waiting list was years unless you ‘knew someone’, and the price was extortionate. No-one accepted that he had simply walked into an optician to get his eyes tested, paid a modest price, and the lenses arrived a week later. Eating out was interesting. Menus were often long, but with most of the dishes unavailable. The waiters would never admit which items the restaurant didn’t have, so there was a guessing game where you had to keep revising your choice until you happened across something they actually did have.]