“Marked S.P.B.”: 300 Years of the St Petersburg Mint.

More than 1,500 unique exhibits will make it possible to trace the three-century historical evolution of one of St Petersburg’s oldest industrial enterprises, from Peter the Great’s time to the present day. Many of the exhibits have not previously been publicly shown or published and are numismatic rarities of world significance. The display has been prepared by the State Hermitage in conjunction with the joint-stock company Gosznak, with the participation of the National Library of Russia.

“The St Petersburg Mint is a symbol of our city and a symbol of Russian statehood, like the Hermitage. That is why we are linked by a long and close friendship. In the display of the Hermitage’s Numismatics Department, there is a wonderful large showcase that contains fascinating medals, coins and plaques that the Mint has produced and continues to produce in connection with various Hermitage events. That tradition goes on,” Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, said.

For more than 100 years now the State Hermitage and the Mint have maintained a close connection. They jointly hold scholarly conferences, and organize exhibitions, of which “Marked S.P.B.” is the largest.

The thematic sections of the new display invites visitors to find out about the formation of the Russian coinage system under Peter the Great; about the updating of coin production through the example of rare, proof and circulation coins and medals from the 18th to early 20th centuries; about the Mint’s operations in the first years after the revolution and during the Great Patriotic War. The exhibition reflects the activities of “satellite” mints in St Petersburg and its environs, including the unrealized plan for a mint in Schlüsselburg, as well as the production of coins at the Sestroretsk Cannon Works and Izhora (Kolpino) Works, and the temporary mint in the building of the Assignation Bank.

Of particular interest are the materials from the Soviet and post-Soviet period in Gosznak’s collection that have only recently been made accessible to the general public. They include designs, proof strikings, approved prototypes and others that did not get approval, a die tool. The unique items help people form a picture of the process of creating coins and medals, the techniques and engineering involved in their manufacture.

The exhibition also features commemorative coins created by the artists of Gosznak’s design centre.

Rare pieces of historical evidence have been provided for the exhibition by the National Library of Russia. They include a 1779 manuscript of Andrei Andreyevich Nartov’s Description of Coin Production containing an illustrated account of the machines used at the St Petersburg Mint during the reign of Catherine the Great, the St Petersburg collector Piotr Alexeyevich Kartavov’s corpus of “decrees on coins” and other materials.

The  exhibition curators are:

• Vitaly Alexandrovich Kalinin, head of the State Hermitage’s Numismatics Department
• Yekaterina Vitalyevna Lepiokhina, deputy head of the Numismatics Department
• Andrei Albertovich Bogdanov, head of the Department of Exhibition and Guided Tour Work for the Exhibition Complex of the joint-stock company Gosznak.

The results of the research and restoration work carried out in preparation for the exhibition “Marked S.P.B.” will be presented at a plenary session of the scholarly conference “Money in Russian History” to be held on 23 October 2024 on the premises of the Mint museum and production complex belonging to the joint-stock company Gosznak (located inside the Peter and Paul Fortress, Building 6A).

The exhibition “Marked S.P.B.” can be visited by all holder of tickets to the Main Museum Complex until 11 February 2025.

More about the exhibition

The display housed in the Manege of the Small Hermitage presents over 1,500 items that, besides examples of the work of St Petersburg coin-makers, include materials that tell of the three-century-long history of striking coins in the city, from Peter the Great’s time to the present day.

At the Will of Peter the Great

The story of the establishment of the St Petersburg Mint is inseparably associated with Peter the Great. He dreamt of constructing an exemplary mint that would accord with the status of the imperial capital. The first decree on mints being moved to the new metropolis was issued in 1719. By that time coins of various types, made of copper, gold and silver, were being issued in Russia. The largest of them were the silver roubles. In 1722, after Peter assumed the title of Emperor, the design of the silver roubles was altered. The obverse was now stamped with a portrait of the Russian Emperor and the letters SPB, while the reverse carried his monogram in the form of a diagonal “St Andrew’s” flag formed from the letter П (the Russian P) and the Roman numeral I. The miniature symbol placed between the letters led collectors to term such roubles “sunny”, although what is depicted on the coin is not the sun but the star of the chivalric Order of the Saint Andrew the Apostle the First-Called. It was roubles of precisely this sort that started to be minted in St Petersburg in 1724.

That point in time is the beginning of the history of the St Petersburg Mint, one of the city’s oldest industrial enterprises, which did not cease operating even during the Siege of Leningrad, when the main production was evacuated to Krasnokamsk in the Urals.

A specimen of the first silver rouble struck at the St Petersburg Mint opens the account of the establishment of the Russian coinage system in the reign of Peter the Great. The story is continued with proof and rare Russian coins, as well as dies used to produce 18th-century coins and medals, including several works by the outstanding Swiss-born medallist Johann Carl Hedlinger which have a direct connection to Russia.

The 19th Century

A central place in the history of Russian medal-making in the first half of the 19th century is taken by the works of the artist and sculptor Count Feodor Petrovich Tolstoi. The best-known include a series of 20 medallions devoted to events of the Patriotic War against Napoleon in 1812, on which he worked for a decade and a half. One of the pieces in that cycle – The Battle of Borodino, commemorating a key event in the conflict – is featured in the exhibition in the Manege of the Small Hermitage.

The St Petersburg Mint means not only innovations in technology and technique and masterpieces of Russian medallic art, but also notable creative personalities – engineers, artists and administrators. Prominent among them is Anton Feodorovich Vasiutinsky. That outstanding artist-medallist of the late 19th century and first decades of the 20th worked at the St Petersburg (Petrograd, Leningrad) Mint for over 40 years. It was to a large extent due to him that the traditions of the national school of medallic art were preserved after 1917. Of particular interest is a proof striking of a commemorative medal designed by Vasiutinsky that was issued in 1924 to mark the 200th anniversary of the Mint.

The 20th Century

The early 20th century in Russia saw thorough-going changes in all spheres of the country’s life. The revolution, civil war and government policy quickly led to hyperinflation, the emission of banknotes and an acute budget deficit. In 1922, the first paper chervonets (10-rouble note) went into circulation in the Soviet Union. At the same time, in October 1922, the decision was taken to issue hard money – gold chervonets coins. In terms of weight and purity (8.6g, 900 fineness) as well as its dimensions, the chervonets accorded fully with the pre-revolutionary 10-rouble coin. The design was the work of the Mint’s chief medallist, Anton Vasiutinsky. The obverse bore the coat-of-arms of the RSFSR, the reverse a depiction of a peasant sowing based on a sculpture by Ivan Shadr that is now in the Tretyakov Gallery. The metal chervontsy were mainly used by the Soviet government for foreign trade operations, although a portion of the coins was also in domestic circulation.

The Mint during the Great Patriotic War and the Siege of Leningrad

Some special chapters in the history of the country and the Leningrad (St Petersburg) Mint are bound up with the period of the Great Patriotic War and the Siege of Leningrad. The bulk of production was evacuated to Krasnokamsk, a town in the Molotov (Perm) region of the Ural Mountains. In 1943, the machinery that remained in the beleaguered city was used to strike the medal For the Defence of Leningrad. The first presentation of the new decoration took place in July 1943. Altogether, the medal For the Defence of Leningrad was given to over 1.4 million people. It is one of the most frequently awarded, yet at the same time most esteemed decorations from the era of the Great Patriotic War.

The Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Period

In 1965, for the first time since 1945, a parade was held on Red Square to mark the Day of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. That year’s large-scale celebrations saw another innovation when the Mint put out the first Soviet commemorative coin made of nickel silver.

Also particularly notable among the unique exhibits from the Soviet and post-Soviet period are prototypes of wartime decorations that were not approved, designs for medals and orders that were approved by Stalin, and other items. An event in the history of all parts of the Soviet Union is reflected in the medals awarded at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The design for the reverse side was devised by the Soviet sculptor Ilya Postol.

Especially rare are the proof commemorative medals from the Gosznak collection that were issued in the USSR over the years. In the display in the Manege of the Small Hermitage visitors will be able to see a proof cupronickel coin with a face value of one rouble from 1980 dedicated to the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kulikovo. In 1975, the 30th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War was marked by the striking of a special rouble. The issue of a five-rouble commemorative coin was also planned. Proof copies, made to the designs of Gosznak artists, were also struck, but they never were put into mass production. Only two examples of those coins have survived in the Gosznak collection, and one of those will appear in the exhibition.

What else?

Besides numismatic rarities, the display will include the technical devices used in production. Those include a reducing machine or pantograph lathe made by the French Janvier company that was used to manufacture coin dies at the Mint from the early 1900s to the early 2000s, as well as tools and workpieces that illustrate current production methods at the St Petersburg Mint, which is today a subsidiary of the joint-stock company Gosznak.

Rare pieces of historical evidence have been provided for the exhibition by the National Library of Russia. They include a 1779 manuscript of Andrei Andreyevich Nartov’s Description of Coin Production containing an illustrated account of the machines used at the St Petersburg Mint during the reign of Catherine the Great, the St Petersburg collector Piotr Alexeyevich Kartavov’s corpus of “decrees on coins” and other materials.

The State Hermitage has long-standing partnership relations with the Mint, which in recent decades has struck commemorative medals and tokens connected with Hermitage events and personalities. Furthermore, in 2007 the St Petersburg Mint transferred to the permanent keeping of the Hermitage a selection of die tools for commemorative medals from the second half of the 20th century.