Why no Soviet 50 kopeck coins? [επιλυμένο]

Hello,

Was browsing through my nearly complete collection of Soviet-era circulating coins, and noticed that between the cessation of Soviet silver coinage in the mid-1920s and the "new" rouble in 1961 there were no circulating 50 kopeck coins, and i was wondering if there was any reason for that?

They kept on making CuNi 10, 15 and 20 kopeck coins throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s, so it strikes me as weird they would opt for a 15 kopeck over a 50 kopeck. Or is there something I am missing?

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces762.html

Of course after the revaluation of the Soviet Ruble in 1961 there was a coin of 50 Kopeks. And there also was a silver one in the 1920's. A very nice coin by the way.

What CassTaylor is referring to is the series of 1930 to 1960. I have no answer here except that 20 Kopeks was the highest coin denomination of the era. In 1958 some pattern 1 and 5 Ruble coins were made but these were never released into circulation and very rare.

Silver supply problems.

Sorry, my problems with bad perception of English language....

Yes, most probably a reason is a shortage of metalls

Possibly Poverty too - the period you describe is the Stalinist period, you have the Great Famine, then the purges and Wolrd War 2 followed by more years of misery. When he dies it takes a while for the Union to bounce back and its likely the introduction of 50 kopecks and roubles were a Kruschev move.

There were paper 1 Rouble and upwards notes right through and most of the big things were paid for by the wages in mid 20th century USSR, rent and the like, most of the zeks only really needed money for small things and stuff like fridges and cars along with all the expensive gee gaws were in very short supply until the Kruschev era.

Hello,

Thanks, but I don't think the silver shortage explanation is satisfactory- it certainly explains why silver coins in general stopped being made in 1930, but not why there were no CuNi 50 kopeck coins between 1930 and 1961? (Was going to ask the same question for the rouble but that is covered as a banknote in this period)

Edit: And on a related note, why were there Empire/Soviet 3 and 15 kopeck denominations? They seem to be fairly odd denominations to make.

I read somewhere, that the Soviet government around 1930 decided that Silver and Gold were bourgeois metals and did not have any place in a Socialist Utopia. The eventual goal was to eliminate the government for one of People's soviets and no money, but an economy based on barter and kind (Oh wow man, how groovy and completely daft). However the megalomaniac Stalin put the kibosh on that. The zeks could struggle with 20 Kopecks and less, but we needed our paper rubles.

Also the famine of 1928 - 1933 and the suppression of the Kulaks (Landed peasants) saw a real hostility against wealth and coins above 20 Kopecks may have been seen as wealth and wealth accumulation was very badsky except if you were in Stalin's inner circle. There were purges against the intelligentsia, the elite and the capitalists, so it helped to have just a few mouldy coppers in your pocket at most.

After the depression ended around 1937, there were purges and people were still getting state rations and the like and thus there was little need for high value cash money, then WW2 came along and metal supplies may have been cut off. After WW2 the country was still poor and very repressed. It was only in the Khruschev era that some of that communist perma frost melted and cupronickel 50 kopeck and even rubles became okay. the currency was stable until 1991 and realistically commemorative coins only really started with the 1967 50th anniversary set. by the 1980 Olympics, commemorative roubles, 3r, 5r and so on up were coming thick and fast.

They had 15 Kopeck coins as this was a Zlotnik, a medieval unit of coinage in the Slavic world (And the name for the Polish currency).

Russians had names for all their low value coins, some include

Polushka - ¼ Kopeck
Denga - ½ Kopeck
Kopeck
Trikopeck - 3 Kopecks
Grivnik - 10 Kopecks (And name for Grivnya the Ukrainian unit)
Zlotnik - 15 Kopecks
PoliPoltnik - 25 Kopecks
Poltnik/Poltina - 50 Kopecks

Also if you go back to before 1700, most Russians were extremely poor and used Dengas and Kopecks for small purchases and often these may be just lumps of metal, so the units 1, 2 , 3 were common. This carried on into Imperial and Communist times, as the Communists saw low value coins as being of use to the peoples who wanted to buy things like Bread, Beer and Borscht with them.

However the Inflation of 1991/98 saw such worthless coins made useless and the new Russia under Putin, has seen modernisation and a reliance on a less folksy economy, but the role of base 3 numbering was important to the Russian people I guess.

Thanks for taking the time to give all that info, Tane- the bit about the 15 kopeck being the successor to the old zlonik unit answered my age-old enquiry perfectly.

CassTylor,
Let's start from 3 kopek - the consensus is that the "altyn" (old name of 3 kopek coin ) was used as a "counting unit" in Russian principalities from 14th century. Initially, the purpose of it was to serve as a common denominator for different value currencies in those principalities and it was equal to 3 Novgorod kopek or 6 Moscow denga ("alty" in Tatar language means "six"). The coin with such denomination was first issued in 1654 and than, traditionally, until 1991.
15 kopek coin has a traditional name "pyatialtynnyi" = "five altyn" and was introduced in 1760 as an intermediate coin between 10 kopek (too small) and 25 kopek (too big). Yes, from 1832 to 1841, 15 kopek was equal to 1 Polish Zloty (Poland at that time was a part of Russian empire and there were coins with both currencies on them) though it's a coincidence and has nothing to do with the origin of the (odd) 15 kopek denomination.
Why there was no 50 kopek between 1930x and 1961 - it's a damn good question which would require some more digging, I'll let you know if I find anything on it.