Tal:
Is there a difference between this and banknotes, or are the same but bigger?
There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight The Who, Won't get fooled again
Bonds & lottery tickets were issued to raise general revenue prior to & during the War but starting in 1941 they took on a military theme. The bonds were issued from 1939-1945 in denoms of 25, 50,100,200,500 & 1000 rubles. In 1946, they were issued to raise funds for Reconstruction.
04-19-2005, 03:55 PM (This post was last modified: 04-20-2005, 04:43 PM by matteti.)
MODIFIED THE INFO because my memory missed few elements...
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Hello Soviet,
Not an expert, but I have many soviet loans in my collection...
Yes, this is pretty common. This is a 1945 state military loan for 100 Roubles. There was for 200, 100, 50, 25 and 10 Roubles.
Razryad, Seria and Obligatsya are hierarchical classifications...
Each year, there was few hundreds Razryad (meaning category or whatever!)
Then,
Each Razryad = 100 million Roubles
Each Razryad contained 20,000 series (The series of 1945 are numbered from 60,001 to 80,000).
Each series contained 50 obligations numbered from 1 - 50
I don't remember all the details, but everything is written at the back... Drawing prizes and everything is based on 100-Rouble obligations (so, a 50-Rouble is called a "half 100-Rouble obligation" (polovyna sto rublevoy obligatsyi), a 200-Rouble will have 2 obligation numbers because because it is in fact two 100-Rouble obligations).
They were 20 years obligations (loans), but were not giving any interest... instead, there was many drawings during the 20 year period which were giving the chance to win prizes in money varying from few hundreds to 50,000 or so Roubles (depends on the year of issue) durnig a drawing.
1/3 (33%) to 35% (depending on the years) of the obligation would ultimately win a prize during the 20-year period. The other which won't win anything will simply receive the face value of the obligation after the expiration of the 20 years. If you won something, then your obligation was immediatly cancelled and lost its face value because you had already won a money prize.
To add to the information, Soviet started to issue "Military Loans" to help funding the war in 1942. 1941 issue of state loans were not "military" yet. They were "State Loans of the x 5-year plan". So, the 1945 edition is called the 4th State Military Loan of USSR. After 1945, starting in 1946, the Loans were for "Restoration and Development of the National Economy of USSR", then they became only "For Development" some years later.
Loans before 1942 were also giving a percentage of yearly interest (4% generally) and chance to win smaller money prize. Starting in 1942, there was no interest, but just money prizes. The total value of the yearly money prizes was equal to 4% of the total amount of issued obligations.
Soviet loans are readily available for cheap prices from around only 1$ to 4-5 $ depending of the condition of the document and the rarity. Just look on E!
By the way, I find that Soviet State Loans are very interesting items to collect when you like to broaden your collection out of the awards-specific field.
Very impressive. A more "pragmatic" Soviet document, I suppose--a state has to pay for itself. Though I'm surprised how reminiscient they are of older US Treasury Bonds.
The bonds were indeed a bit of "Russian Roulette". You pay X in and you are supposed to get X plus just over inflation out. In reality you can win or lose and everything in between. The house - in this case the state - always wins.
I personally don't believe in gambling and have never bought any sort of bond, lottery or raffle ticket etc but the bonds I was bought at birth paid off 500%. Many others will have received 0%.
I do have some Imperial Russian Bonds I'll have to scan one day.