10 rubles — USSR (1961)

Watermark

Stars running diagonally from bottom to top.

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Special facts

The 1961-series 10-ruble note is a State Bank note ("Билет Государственного банка СССР"), not a Treasury note like the smaller denominations, and it is the only one of them with an extra security feature: starting with the third issue, a UV-fluorescent stamp was added to the reverse, visible only under ultraviolet light. The switches between Orlov and offset printing turned out to be especially tangled here — in the third and fourth issues, the printing method could change several times even within a single series, and researchers have never managed to pin down a clean boundary.

Watermark

Photo: Daniel LeBowsky (CC BY-NC-SA) · Numista
Non-commercial use only

Stars across the note, diagonally from bottom to top.

Printing defects

The defects of the 1961 10-rouble notes mostly concern numbering: there are misfired numbers with a missing or shifted digit and rare notes with two different numbers — the result of a badly skewed sheet. Notes with an inverted watermark also occur, with the stars tilted either correctly or the wrong way.

Print type

On 10-ruble notes, the easiest way to tell Orlov printing from offset is by the small print (for example, the counterfeiting-warning text): Orlov-printed letters have sharp corners, while offset-printed ones are rounded and slightly blurred.

Paper type

1961-series notes were printed on two types of paper. The first is matte, greyish-yellow, and is less common. The second is white, glossy on one side, and is far more common. Different denominations switched paper type at different issues. Telling them apart by eye is difficult — it's more reliable to compare several notes side by side.

About the period

The currency reform of 1961 was a 10-to-1 redenomination: from 1 January 1961 old money was exchanged for new money of one tenth the face value. The coins and banknotes of the 1961 pattern circulated until the end of the Soviet Union. More about the period “1961 Monetary Reform”

Coins and banknotes of this year: 1961

Other items of the period

• 1 kopeck (1961–1991) Y# 126
• 2 kopecks (1961–1991) Y# 127
• 3 kopecks (1961–1991) Y# 128
• 5 kopecks (1961–1991) Y# 129
• 10 kopecks (1961–1991) Y# 130
• 15 kopecks (1961–1991) Y# 131
• 20 kopecks (1961–1991) Y# 132
• 50 kopecks (1961) Y# 133a.1
• 50 kopecks (1964–1991) Y# 133a.2
• 1 ruble (1961) Pick# 222
• 1 ruble (1961) Y# 134a.1
• 1 ruble (1964–1991) Y# 134a.2
• 3 rubles (1961) Pick# 223
• 5 rubles (1961) Pick# 224
• 10 rubles (1961) Pick# 233
• 25 rubles (1961) Pick# 234
• 50 rubles (1961) Pick# 235
• 100 rubles (1961) Pick# 236