Blood of the Romanovs: Six of the Last Russian Coins Issued by the Romanov Dynasty Boxed Coin Collection

This remarkable collection features six of the last issues of the Romanov dynasty. The year 2017 is the centennial of Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication, while 2018 will mark 100 years since the massacre of the royal family.  Just after midnight on 17 July, 1918, Yakov Yurovsky entered the quarters of the tsar on the second floor of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, an industrial city in the Urals. He was thirty years old, with wavy brown hair, and a Van Dyke of impressive length grew around his mouth. A watchmaker by trade and an ardent Bolshevik, Yurovsky was the commandant of what the Secret Police called “The House of Special Purpose.” He ordered the royal physician, Eugvny Botkin, to rouse the sleeping tsar and his family.  “Your Highness,” the doctor said, “please, you must come with me. The armies are on the march, and this house is no longer safe.” And so Nicholas II—no longer the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, but regarded by much of the world as the rightful ruler of t