Presenting the Ukrainian Choir Collection

Discoveries in numismatics occur frequently, yet sometimes it feels like the pace of discovery is slowing. Whether that is the case can be debated, but the fact is that there are still discoveries to be made. This became all too clear recently, when I was contacted by a family from the eastern United States. Several years ago they had located a small brown bag containing a sizable quantity of Ukrainian notes issued around 1918. There was a total of nine denominations, with a mix of circulated and brand-new notes. The group had obviously been together for quite some time (perhaps a century), although it was not immediately clear whether they were collected, if they were somebody’s life savings, or if they had come to be in this brown paper bag some other way. I was asked with providing a preliminary estimate on the group, and soon realized that we were dealing with something special; while the notes were not particularly rare, they are popular, and seeing them in this quantity (most denominations had somewhere between 150 and 250 of each type in a mix of grades) is rather unusual.

After giving my preliminary estimate on value, the family decided to consign them to Stack’s Bowers Galleries, and we took them in on consignment. So far, this is a fairly typical deal that we facilitate regularly. However, after the notes were received at the office and we started to come up with a game plan on how to sell them, a tattered handwritten note fell from the middle of one of the packs; the story of these notes became clearer. While there are still some unanswered questions, the letter in Cyrillic revealed the source of the notes, and it was rather surprising. They were funds accepted by the Ukrainian National Chorus in Berlin in 1922. The letter spelled out the original quantity of each denomination, and it turned out that approximately 90% of the funds mentioned in the letter were still there!

The Ukrainian National Chorus was the successor to the Ukrainian Republic Capella and was led by Olaksandr Koshetz, who is named in the letter. The Capella had been formed shortly after World War I while in exile, and had toured in parts of Europe in the following years. After its dissolution, Koshetz and several other members formed the Ukrainian National Chorus, which toured extensively in the United States between 1922 and 1924 (some sources say 1926), including a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City. It’s mostly known for introducing the famous ‘Carol of the Bells’ to an American audience, which remains a popular song at Christmas time.

The choir was already in the United States when, according to the letter, the funds were withdrawn in Berlin, so the exact circumstances are unclear (the funds may have originally been a grant by the Ukrainian Government in exile, or perhaps they were travel funds sent in support of the choir). Still, its survival is unusual, and the fact that over 90% of the funds remain is even more so. We have decided to offer what we call the Ukrainian Choir Collection in a series of auctions in Hong Kong, starting with our June 2026 Premier Collectors Choice Auction. The letter will be included in one of the future lots and is an important memento to one of the most famous choirs from the region to have ever existed.