1000 rubles — RSFSR (1919) — “Babylonian note”

The thousand-rouble note of the second 1919 series is also a «Babylonian note»: it has an ornate border and is dated 1919, but was released in March 1920. On the reverse the slogan «Workers of the world, unite» is printed in several languages, including Arabic and Chinese. Ten series were issued at three factories — 884 million notes. Issuing was stopped by a decree of 28 June 1922, and the notes could be exchanged for 1922-series roubles at 10,000 to 1 until 1 November 1922.

The note carries two signatures: that of the People’s Commissar of Finance N. Krestinsky (the same on all) and one of ten cashiers, set by the last digit of the block number (0 — Galtsov, 9 — Titov). The ten series were printed by three Goznak factories: the First Moscow factory printed АА, АБ, АЕ, АЖ, АЗ and АИ (100 blocks each) and АК (48 blocks), Penza АВ (100 blocks) and АГ (50), and Perm (the Urals) АД (86). Each block is 1,000,000 notes; the table has a separate row for each last block digit, factory and watermark type.

There are four types of watermark: the numeral 1000 (all series), small stars (series АВ, АГ, АД and АЖ), large «shadow» stars (АЗ, АИ, АК) and lozenges (АЗ, АИ) — Pick 104a–d in the catalogue. Not every watermark occurs with every cashier, so the table has fewer rows for stars and lozenges than there are block digits. The notes were printed in sheets of 6 (3 × 2). Specimens are perforated «ОБРАЗЕЦЪ».

The dominant colour of the note is green, and the value stands at the right on the obverse. The slogan on the reverse is printed in four scripts: Cyrillic, Latin, Arabic and Chinese characters. The note measures 115 × 80 mm.