On 23 October 2024, the exhibition Marked S.P.B., devoted to the tercentenary of the St Petersburg Mint, begins its run in the Manege of the Small Hermitage.

More than 1,500 unique exhibits will make it possible to trace the three-century historical evolution of one of St Petersburg’s oldest industrial enterprises, from Peter the Great’s time to the present day. Many of the exhibits have not previously been publicly shown or published and are numismatic rarities of world significance. The display has been prepared by the State Hermitage in conjunction with the joint-stock company Gosznak, with the participation of the National Library of Russia.

“The St Petersburg Mint is a symbol of our city and a symbol of Russian statehood, like the Hermitage. That is why we are linked by a long and close friendship. In the display of the Hermitage’s Numismatics Department, there is a wonderful large showcase that contains fascinating medals, coins and plaques that the Mint has produced and continues to produce in connection with various Hermitage events. That tradition goes on”, Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the State Hermitage, said.

For more than 100 years now the State Hermitage and the Mint have maintained a close connection. They jointly hold scholarly conferences, and organize exhibitions, of which Marked S.P.B. is the largest.

The thematic sections of the new display invites visitors to find out about the formation of the Russian coinage system under Peter the Great; about the updating of coin production through the example of rare, proof and circulation coins and medals from the 18th to early 20th centuries; about the Mint’s operations in the first years after the revolution and during the Great Patriotic War. The exhibition reflects the activities of “satellite” mints in St Petersburg and its environs, including the unrealized plan for a mint in Schlüsselburg, as well as the production of coins at the Sestroretsk Cannon Works and Izhora (Kolpino) Works, and the temporary mint in the building of the Assignation Bank.

Of particular interest are the materials from the Soviet and post-Soviet period in Gosznak’s collection that have only recently been made accessible to the general public. They include designs, proof strikings, approved prototypes and others that did not get approval, a die tool. The unique items help people form a picture of the process of creating coins and medals, the techniques and engineering involved in their manufacture.

The exhibition also features commemorative coins created by the artists of Gosznak’s design centre.

Rare pieces of historical evidence have been provided for the exhibition by the National Library of Russia. They include a 1779 manuscript of Andrei Andreyevich Nartov’s Description of Coin Production containing an illustrated account of the machines used at the St Petersburg Mint during the reign of Catherine the Great, the St Petersburg collector Piotr Alexeyevich Kartavov’s corpus of “decrees on coins” and other materials.

The exhibition curators are:

  • Vitaly Alexandrovich Kalinin, head of the State Hermitage’s Numismatics Department.
  • Yekaterina Vitalyevna Lepiokhina, deputy head of the Numismatics Department.
  • Andrei Albertovich Bogdanov, head of the Department of Exhibition and Guided Tour Work for the Exhibition Complex of the joint-stock company Gosznak.

The results of the research and restoration work carried out in preparation for the exhibition “Marked S.P.B.” will be presented at a plenary session of the scholarly conference “Money in Russian History” to be held on 23 October 2024 on the premises of the Mint museum and production complex belonging to the joint-stock company Gosznak (located inside the Peter and Paul Fortress, Building 6A).

The exhibition Marked S.P.B. can be visited by all holder of tickets to the Main Museum Complex until 11 February 2025.

The display housed in the Manege of the Small Hermitage presents over 1,500 items that, besides examples of the work of St Petersburg coin-makers, include materials that tell of the three-century-long history of striking coins in the city, from Peter the Great’s time to the present day.