Many people living in the UK know that the oldest currency in the world that is still in circulation is pound sterling, but less people are probably aware that the second oldest currency in the world is the Ruble. The Ruble has been around for over 700 years, and it is believed the name comes from the Russian verb ‘rubit’ meaning to chop as the coins were originally made from cut up pieces of silver.
The coins have been through many guises as you would expect for a currency with such a long history and was the officially recognised currency of Russia and the Russian territories by the 14th Century.
In the early 18th Century, under the rule of the Tsar Peter the Great, the Ruble underwent a change when it was one of the first units of currency to be decimalised, and each Ruble was then split into 100 kopeks – something that is now common around the world but was one of the first at the time. This helped to align Russia more closely with other countries in Europe making trade and relations easier. It was not until Catherine the Great that paper bank notes were introduced however, and in the 19th Century, there were also platinum coins in circulation, something that is not very common in other world currencies.
In 1917 throughout the country of course there was a lot of turmoil and change due to the Russian Revolution and the Ruble changed with many other things in the country. In the early days of the Soviet period, inflation was high and new versions of the Ruble were introduced which would continue all the way through the Soviet Union until the collapse in 1991.
The Ruble changed again in the 90s following the collapse of the USSR to help stabilise the economy which was struggling at the time as the country changed so dramatically.
Some Rubles are very valuable for coin collectors, so if you happen to have one or some, it is certainly worth checking with a professional like this coin valuers UK based company www.gmcoins.co.uk/ to see if they are worth something. One of the rarest is the 1825 Constantine Ruble, which never officially entered circulation, and any silver Rubles in good condition from the early 1700s are also very valuable.
