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1 Rouble Alaska
| Issuer | Russian-American Company |
|---|---|
| Year | 1815-1862 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Rouble (1704-1917) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | МАРКА ВЪ АМЕРИКЪ 1 РУБ |
| Reverse description | Reverse of this parchment note is plain, with no printed design elements, consistent with the utilitarian nature of Russian-American Company currency issued for local trade circulation in Alaska. |
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| Comments |
The Russian-American Company's scrip notes are among the most materially unusual objects in the entire field of notaphily. Issued in Russian America for internal company use, they circulated exclusively among company employees, indigenous workers, and traders operating within the RAC's monopoly territory — functionally a truck system enforced by geography. The walrus skin substrate was not an affectation; paper had to be imported at considerable expense and was perpetually in short supply at that latitude.
The RAC's charter was renewed three times before Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, at which point this scrip became immediately worthless. Surviving examples are extremely rare precisely because walrus parchment, while durable, was subject to the same damp storage conditions that destroyed most colonial-era records in the region.