Steal Of A Steal - Soviet 1927 1/2 Kopek

nice work bulking up your CCCP collection!

Soviet coins have a decent market in the US, but the 4th Ruble coins (1920s-40s) can be fairly valuable, as the Soviet government was pretty efficient at confiscating and melting down old coinage, so that probably a very small fraction of the official mintages actually remains. The "cold war" design (1961-91) is not very popular, and can he bought at roughly 1 ruble face per $1. The terminal "government bank" issues of 1991 seem to be a sleeper series for the CCCP.

The 1/2 kopek especially had a very short run of 3 years, was not popular, and forcibly confiscated after 1928.

Is that a 7 ribbons type 5 kopek I'm seeing? This is one of the rarest non-silver Soviet types (perhaps rarer than even the 1/2 kopek).
And the 1935 date is apparently scarcer than 1936 (a specimen of which, in worse condition than this, I was lucky to buy for 100 rubles [$1.5] a few weeks ago). In the most recent Taganka price list, it's listed at 1800 rubles [$25-30, not sure of the exact exchange rate] in VF-XF (this one is not as nice, but still).

Darn... and now that I look at the price list, I realize that one set I didn't want to buy for 800 rubles [$12] - because very expensive - is listed for 20,000 rubles [$300]. I'll have to check the place I found it on Saturday - not that there's any realistic chance it's the real thing, admittedly, with that sort of disparity (and if it is, it had almost certainly been bought already).

I was actually working on a Soviet (non-commemorative) type set for a while (simultaneously with my feeble attempts at a Russian Empire copper type set), but got distracted a bit. Now that I've got a half kopek (late April) and 7 ribbons 5 kopek (early May), the goal is actually in sight (aside from the one gold coin, which I'll never afford even as a restrike, and the two silver rubles - I think I'm only missing one non-ruble silver type).
That Russian Empire type set, incidentally? Is now a good deal more complete, thanks to a bunch of nice bargain bins (and sellers who didn't really care what they're selling) at the Vernisage. I'll try to check on the gxseries list, but for the most part I'm only missing the rarer series (1762, 1800s, Siberian - I consider the 1796 series, and a few other uber-rare coins, to be patterns), some of the very large denominations, and a few of the really late small denominations (that 1/4 kopek is tricky).