Coin catalog 1682-1890. Corpus of the Russian coins of Georgii Mikhailovich in 11 volumes
The catalog provides detailed information on all issues of Russian coins, including the year, place of minting, volume of issue and its distinctive features.
The set includes volumes:
1. Coins of Emperor Peter I
2. Coins of Empress Catherine I and Emperor Peter II
3. Coins of Empress Anna Ioannovna and Emperor John III
4. Coins of Empress Elizabeth I and Emperor Peter III
5. Coins of Empress Elizabeth I and Emperor Peter III
6. Coins of Empress Catherine II
7. Coins of Empress Catherine II
8. Coins of Emperor Paul I and Emperor Alexander I
9. Coins of Emperor Nicholas I
10. Coins of Emperor Alexander II and Russian coins of 1881-1890.
11. Russian coins minted for the outskirts.
Publishing house IP Media inc/
Format 250 x 350 mm, hardcover, coated paper 135 g/m2, Slovakia, 2003.
The catalog is a reprint of the 13th volume, published volume by volume from 1888 to 1914. Its creator, Georgy Mikhailovich, was a member of the royal family and had access to the archives of the mint, as well as many rare coins. That is why his work turned out to be the most complete in the entire history of numismatics. Complete in the sense that in his catalog all the coins of each year are displayed in pictures (with the exception of some copies that were discovered later or were actually inaccessible to him), but still 90% of the coins ended up in his catalog. In addition to images of all coins of all years, a description is also written for the coin and documents from the mints are reprinted. The catalog also contains images of herds. Based on the work of Georgy Mikhailovich, many other well-known catalogs were made - Bitkin, Uzdenikov. They took images of coins for the most part from the catalog of Georgy Mikhailovich. The catalog is abbreviated as VKGM.
There are some omissions in the catalogue, for example there are no images of coins of Peter I from 1720 to 1725. As well as a description of the coins of Peter I from 1710 to 1725. He simply did not have time to complete the catalog due to the outbreak of World War I (the last volume was published in 1914).
The catalog has its own degrees of rarity, determined by Georgy Mikhailovich.
All coins presented in the catalog are the collection of Georgy Mikhailovich; after 1917, part of the collection was exported to Europe and then sold. Now most of the collection is kept in the USA, some in private collections, the rest has been lost. That is why no one has yet been able to repeat such a great work of the prince, and his catalog remains the basis of Russian numismatics.
It is also interesting that under particularly rare coins you can find comments, for example that such a coin is known in 3 copies in the collection of Tolstoy, Ilyin and one in my collection. These comments are interesting because they describe the situation with rarities at the time the catalog was created. In addition, Georgy Mikhailovich does not disdain references to earlier catalogs of Schubert (1856-1857) and Chaudoir (1837), as well as his contemporaries.
Most of all I liked how he wrote that at the mint, when dismantling the director’s office, they found a box with minted coins of 1.5 rubles 10 zlotys of 1836 “Family ruble”, minted later than 1875, i.e. remakes that are easy to identify by the split of the stamp.
An excellent gift for all levels of numismatists, as well as for any other use of information from the catalog!
