Из истории создания В. П. Смирновым каталога штемпельного инструмента Санкт-Петербургского монетного двора

The mining engineer Victor Smirnov is known in the history of Russian numismatics as the author of the dies catalogue, which is still to be found at the Saint Petersburg Mint. This edition has served as a fundamental reference book for generations of historians of Russian medal minting and phaleristics.

Unfortunately, the catalogue and its supplements do not include dies produced after the beginning of 1915, such as more than 200 dies used at the Mint in the last pre-revolutionary years, as well as some earlier dies and matrices for commemorative and decoration medals. Due to his offi cial position the author of the present article was able to supplement the “Description of Russian Medals” with 214 items not included into this book and never published before.