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

The two-hundred-and-fifty-rouble settlement 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. Blocks of 200 were planned for each of the three series, but in the end 174 blocks were issued — 174 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. The note was printed by three Goznak factories, and the series shows which one: the First Moscow factory printed series АА (blocks 001–072), Penza АБ (001–064) and Perm (the Urals) АВ (001–038). Each block is 1,000,000 notes; the table has a separate row for each series and last block digit.

The notes were printed in sheets of 10 (2 × 5). Most notes have the numeral 250 as a watermark, laid diagonally. Series АБ also occurs with a different watermark — small six-pointed stars (Pick 102b) — but only with the cashiers whose block ends in a digit from 4 to 9. A printing error is known: the reverse printed upside down. Specimens are perforated «ОБРАЗЕЦЪ».

The dominant colour of the note is green. The slogan on the reverse is printed in four scripts: Cyrillic, Latin, Arabic and Chinese characters. The note measures 105 × 70 mm.