Numista: Unsolvable Global Problem

Hi,

One of referees wrote "We are not sticking our thumbs up to the nose, believe me".
I believe that they don't engage in nose-picking :)). But for myself I see one of unsolvable "global" problems (and to which no one pays attention).

There is no clear attitude of Numista to "coin-twins", - coins which have slight differences, but WWC gives them separate numbers (usually with extensions .1, .2, ...).
Historically, in most cases, on Numista for a cluster of such coins was assigned one coin position (with KM-number without extension) with further details inside.
A typical situation - when appears coin-twin (.2), its description is just added to first coin (.1) with corresponding adjustment.

Of course at first sight advantages are obvious - simplicity and compactness!
But in my opinion it's very far-fetched ("artificial").

It's impossible to give a full description of second coin, - you can't even normally give its photos (a field "Comment" is not for this purpose).
Such method implies one main coin (with main description) and several auxiliary coins. But the main problem is that in most cases all of these coins are equal!!!

When you go into someone's list for swap, he can have different coins which are necessary to you, but you don't know about it!!!, because these coins are marked as "You own this coin".
As a result, a person misses such coins, or it turns into a huge waste of time.

There are other problems, one of them - rarity Index doesn't work (these coins are different but index is general).

As far as I see, today on Numista there is no uniform approach to cataloging of such coins.
And of course I understand that to divide such clusters into separate coin positions it is a utopia. It is titanic work!

Regards, Victor

Yes we do, and this is the solution:

For changes in diameter or weight: separate #X.1, #X.2
For small varieties or additions in the design: group together #X.1, #X.2

Then, to describe the differences in these varieties, we have the Comments field, which allows images to be uploaded to show the differences. We also have comment fields in the year lists.

I hope this answers your unsolvable global problem, but I think your problem pertains to you or a small minority

No! Your answer no way doesn't "answer my global problem"! Your answer only states the current situation.

Maybe rarity index interesting to me alone. Maybe. Maybe defective description of coins don't like me alone. Maybe. But every swapper (who collects by types) faces with this problem. And it's not a small minority.

I collect by type and I made the decision to collect by "Numista page" (usually that means the base type number without any suffix). The subtypes are usually tiny design changes like a mintmark or the way the date is written (e.g., Japanese coins go from saying "first year" to "year two"). These aren't significant enough changes to justify bulking up my collection with both varieties.

I think it's easy enough to look at coins on a swap list that have the exclamation point and check for the subtypes you're interested in, if you do collect subtypes but not every year.

Believe me, if you collected one coin for one country, it would be even easier for you...

If you have "100" coins, it is one thing. But if you have several thousand coins and you go to someone else's list, where also a few thousand, I want to look at your "it's easy enough"!!!

Hello,

I agree with Victor (Ukraine).

One example:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces847.html

This are two coin types. First with reeded edge, socond with plain adge.

Other examples are, the first type has a thick planchet and a higher weight, the second a thinner planchet an a lower weight. These are also two different coin types.
Also if the material changes for example from Copper-nickel to Nickel plated Steel. Sometimes they are both in one coin sheet (with the small addidion "magnetic" in the comments line) but shoud be devided into two coin sheets. Different meterails means different coin types (and very often different weight or different thickness).

We shouldn't obey the coin catalogues too much. KM is very often wrong, Schön is sometimes wrong. All catalogues have their mistakes. Sometimes they forget to add a new material for years but list the new years (happened in Schön with the actual Steel plated One Shekel from Israel. Collecors in a German forum pointed the author to this and he remembered that he wanted to add the material change into the catalogue but just forgot it - happened a few years ago).

But: changes like this should be discussed hiere in this forum. Otherwise we would create a big chaos if everybody just adds a new coin sheet for every tiny difference on a coin which is just a minting contingency.

I can live with the Numista System (which is not handeled absolutely strict).
I make my own system by myself with pictures for every type and subtype i count for important. So sometimes i have two coin types listed with picture and full description, where numista lists one sheet and sometimes not.

But i would be happy to see the problem Vocort(Ukraine) described solved.

I'm not calling blindly copy a structure of some world catalog. But on Numista historically has been chosen WWC, and this catalog is the standard for many. Therefore Numista can quite just completely follow its structure (of course with a slight correction if necessary).

I'm not going to deepen here what differences are essential and what - not. But of course all cases listed by Handzumgrus should be unacceptable! Reeded and plain edge it's very essential difference, these are different coins, and they shouldn't be placed in one general pile.

I have written this post in hope to draw attention to this problem. For today this problem on Numista has reached big scale. When I look at all this, it reminds me some sabbath of referees!!
Of course the majority of coins has been entered a long time ago when the main thing was - filling of the catalog. But today each referee himself defines "destiny" of a coin. And now we have what me have.

I think that the standard approach to WWC-guided catalog - to allocate a single coin sheet for each KM-number. That's all! It's very simple approach, and it doesn't demand from referee to show personal creativity. If in some case a referee has doubt, he always can open a debate for this coin.

Someone might say "then we will have a huge number of coins!"... Well, and what from that?! What's the difference? Yes, there will be more coins. But we get correct catalog structure with its advantages.
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By the way, for programmers it is a motive to think about a two-level system for coins.

Suggestion...
There are many people that collect by year, mint mark and variety, but most of the people do not collect that way.

I think it would be very good for those collectors if there is a way to see who collects like that, so that they can find each other.

Long ago I had a swap with a collector who collects by variety and he accused me that I cheated him because I sent him a wrong variety of a coin with same year and mint mark Apparently variety that I had in my swap list was rare and it was not the one that I sent him :)
Dude, I have thousands of coins in my swap list and that many at home that I did not enter into my swap list yet. There is no way I will waste my time on variety.

So, if people that collect by type, year, mint mark and variety could see each other, and arrange a swap with each other, they could aspect accuracy. From me, you can aspect type and year and even a mint mark if it is in an alphabet that I read