The Oriental section possesses over 230,000 coins. Compared to the classical section which was augmented by archaeological finds, the collection of Oriental coins, especially Kufic and Juchian ones, largely benefited from the discovery of hoards. Most items of the brilliant Sassanian collection derive from hoards found in the Caucasus. The gold Sassanian coins include a unique double denarius of Hormizd II (303—309). Its obverse shows the profile portrait of the ruler wearing a diadem-like crown topped by a bird of prey. The reverse depicts a fire-altar, shaped as a column with a capital, above which tongues of flame rise. On either side of the altar are two figures, one of which also wears Hormizd’s crown.
Thanks to accessions from the hoards, the Hermitage collection of Kufic, especially Samanid, coins is now one of the best in the world. In addition to the above-mentioned dirhem with the name of Zubaydah, there is another fine dirhem of brilliant workman ship, minted by Daisam ibn Ibrahim al-Qurdi, a statesman who lived in the tenth century and at one time ruled Azerbaijan and Eastern Armenia.
Among the coins of the Mongol dynasties are some 9,000 Juchian specimens. One of the rare coins in this collection was minted by Turakina, widow of Gengis Khan.
The small Georgian collection (1,775 items) includes several rare pieces, such as figured copper coins minted by Georgi IV Lasha, the co-ruler of Queen Tamar and later the ruler of Georgia, and a fish-shaped copper coin dating from 1210, the only known sample of its kind.
The collection of coins of Cilician Armenia is almost of the same size as the Georgian one.
There is an interesting collection of stamps of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, totalling 350 specimens. 340 of these were used in minting gold, silver and copper coins in the Khiva Khanate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Incidentally, they were found by chance below the stage of the Hermitage Theatre in the 1930s.
Prominent among the coinages of the Far East is the group of silver and gold Chinese ingots (about 600 items, 3 in gold), forming one of the best collections in the world. Varying in weight, these jüanpao ingots were widely used in the Chinese trade in modern times; they always bear the date and mint officina, weight, and various wishes of well-being.
Most richly represented in the Numismatic Department are the coinages of Western Europe (over 330,000 items plus coins from America and Australia kept in the same section).
Coins of the barbarian states and of the Carolingians constitute a relatively modest part of the collection. Among 150 gold Merovingian coins are such rare pieces as two tremisses with the name of St Eligius, or Eloi. The gold coinage of the Carolingians, which was generally very scarce, is illustrated by several specimens, notably the gold solidus struck in Dorestad (Holland). This coin was sent to the Memorial Charlemagne Exhibition held in Aachen in 1965.
There are scores of coins dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries, found in the territory of the Soviet Union. The period from the late twelfth to the fifteenth century is not as well represented, for silver coins of the time except Prague groschen and Polish and Baltic coins have not practically occurred in the finds made in Eastern Europe. The number of German bracteates of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, together with coins from the only hoard of bracteates encountered at Khotin, does not exceed 5,000. The Hermitage now has an extensive collection of early gold florins and ducats, particularly from Italy, Hungary and the Rhenish regions of Germany, which were uncovered in the hoards in the south and southwest of the USSR. The gold coinages of the Netherlands, England and France are extremely well represented. There is an exceptionally varied collection of large silver coins of the late fifteenth to eighteenth centuries — talers and testones (from the Italian testa, head, usually bearing a head of the ruler) — and an excellent collection of the first talers struck by the Schlicks, Counts of Czechia. There is also a group of Neapolitan talers of Charles V and Philip II with the countermark of Sigismund II Augustus, King of Poland, who inherited these coins from his mother, the Milanese Duchess Bona Sforza. The Neapolitan coins with the counter-mark of 1564 are the immediate predecessors of the Polish taler. Among the silver coins of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries there are many rare trial specimens and kindred piedforts — multiple or pattern pieces struck on an unusually thick flan. Intended for checking the quality and weight of conventional coins, these were often presented as gifts to the high-ranking persons inspecting the mints.
The collection of Russian coins, totalling with duplicates some 250,000, is especially complete, and is the best of its kind in the world. The foundations of Russian coinage were laid by Grand Prince Vladimir Sviatoslavich in the late tenth century, and coincided with the beginning of coinage in several European countries, notably Poland, Sweden and Norway (the first coins of these countries are also fairly well represented in the Hermitage). The earliest Russian gold and silver coins are called zlatniki and srebrianiki. Zlalniki are particularly rare; there are only ten known pieces of which seven are in the Hermitage. The srebrianiki of Prince Yaroslav the Wise are distinguished by their superb workmanship. No less remarkable is the zolotoi of Ivan III (1462—1505); although modelled on the Hungarian ducat widely used in commerce at that time, it nevertheless bears Russian legends. By issuing the Russian ducat Ivan III wished to show that Russia had become stronger both politically and economically and acquired increasing international prestige. At the end of 1974 the Museum received, a Russian imitation of an English noble, with the name of Ivan III.
From the fourteenth century until the reforms of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Peter the Great the main monetary unit in Russia was the denga, coined of tiny bits of silver wire. Some types of the denga, especially those of the appanage period, are quite rare. The coin of the lowest denomination — the copper pulo — was struck in individual areas of the country and much less frequently than the denga. The reforms of the mid-seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries narrowed the gap between the Russian monetary system and that of Western Europe; the mintage of large silver roubles and gold coins was begun. Among the monetary units of the seventeenth century, the talers mentioned above, with the Russian countermark of 1655, are particularly interesting in that they reflect Russia’s economic relations with other European countries. The Hermitage possesses about one third (456 pieces) of the total number of such coins housed in various museums in the world.
One of the unique coins is the so-called Konstantin rouble. Since Tsar Alexander I died leaving no sons or grandsons, his oldest brother, Grand Duke Konstantin, was his logical successor. But Konstantin renounced his rights to the throne and Alexander’s third brother Nicholas became Emperor of Russia. In the meantime, in November — first half of December 1825, the St Petersburg Mint struck seven coins with the name of the heir presumptive, i.e. Konstantin. Two coins found their way to the collection of the famous numismatist J. Reichel, while the remaining five, with three pairs of stamps and trial tin impressions from them, were preserved in the Secret Archives of the Ministry of Finance until 1879. As the Konstantin roubles were minted in the time of the Decembrist Rebellion of 24 December 1825, they quickly became the subject of all sorts of legends, and even fakes appeared. Since then increasingly higher prices have been asked for these roubles. Thus, one of them was recently auctioned for 70,000 francs in Switzerland.