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A gripe: Krause's encyclopedic blurbs are stupid
spoon
Posts: 2,798 ✭✭✭
Really.
I understand that the book was first published when perhaps not everyone had ready access to a set of encyclopedias. I can see how they may have been helpful to the average reader not acquainted with the fact that "Jersey was occupied by Neanderthal man 100,000 B.C., and Iberians of 2000 B.C. who left their chamber tombs in the island's granite cliffs." (Taken from the 1993 SCWC and unchanged as of 2008.)
But now we're in the age of the internet. Wikipedia. Nuff said.
Now I'm not arguing that these blurbs should be wholly removed. Just retooled. The 20th century books don't need to tell us which primitive tribes settled the area. More helpful would be a quick, short summary of more recent events and then a review of the monetary system and a summary that touches on frequently asked questions (such as "why do the coins of British West Africa feature a six-pointed star?"). Each volume should be tailored to the coins featured in it (ie, don't cut & paste the same blurb from the 20th century book into the 18th century one).
It's always been annoying to flip through Krause, find something odd, instinctively turn to the blurb and find absolutely nothing of numismatic substance. It's a coin book. Give us coin related information. We can reference other sources to find that "potatos are the staple subsistence crop" of Tristan da Cunha.
An example of a helpful section is the one on the Ottoman Empire/Turkey. It lists the rulers and mints, explains the monetary system and what mint visit and monnaie de luxe issues are, etc. More like this please!
I'm just speaking out loud here.
What are your thoughts?
I understand that the book was first published when perhaps not everyone had ready access to a set of encyclopedias. I can see how they may have been helpful to the average reader not acquainted with the fact that "Jersey was occupied by Neanderthal man 100,000 B.C., and Iberians of 2000 B.C. who left their chamber tombs in the island's granite cliffs." (Taken from the 1993 SCWC and unchanged as of 2008.)
But now we're in the age of the internet. Wikipedia. Nuff said.
Now I'm not arguing that these blurbs should be wholly removed. Just retooled. The 20th century books don't need to tell us which primitive tribes settled the area. More helpful would be a quick, short summary of more recent events and then a review of the monetary system and a summary that touches on frequently asked questions (such as "why do the coins of British West Africa feature a six-pointed star?"). Each volume should be tailored to the coins featured in it (ie, don't cut & paste the same blurb from the 20th century book into the 18th century one).
It's always been annoying to flip through Krause, find something odd, instinctively turn to the blurb and find absolutely nothing of numismatic substance. It's a coin book. Give us coin related information. We can reference other sources to find that "potatos are the staple subsistence crop" of Tristan da Cunha.
An example of a helpful section is the one on the Ottoman Empire/Turkey. It lists the rulers and mints, explains the monetary system and what mint visit and monnaie de luxe issues are, etc. More like this please!
I'm just speaking out loud here.
What are your thoughts?
0
Comments
BST: Tennessebanker, Downtown1974, LarkinCollector, nendee
But I agree, it should be (a) historically relevant for the period covered by the catalogue (there's something a bit jarring reading about modern politics in a 1700's coin catalogue), and (b) made relevant to numismatics where possible.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
Apparently I have been awarded one DPOTD.
Still, I enjoyed reading it and read each and every blurb, which took me about a week. I'd like to get the earlier versions too, at some point. I don't care about values but just a cool reference would be fun to read.
I still can't make hide nor hair out of the Indian Princely States and most Arabic lettered coins though! They are just beyond my grasp right now, I guess.
DPOTD-3
'Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery'
CU #3245 B.N.A. #428
Don
I have Older Catalogs Available if anyone is interested.
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<< <i>yeah well... we ALL know Wikipedia is correct... >>
Well said, Even Colleges won't allow a Wiki reference.
FOR SALE Items
http://bit.ly/bxi7py
<< <i>I'd settle for them working on fixing the errors and the omissions of entire denominations, let alone types, from some sections. Sheesh.
Robertson,
Too right! I reported in that Canadian $1,000,000 gold Maple Leaf (which weighs 100 Kg.) to Krause as soon as it came out in early 2007.Guess what? It still hasn't even been listed!
The same thing goes for the 2 bimetal 400 Shillings medal-coins from Somaliland depicting Yasser Arafat & Yitzak Rabin that came out in 2005.
The quality of mint information in Krause is not as good as it could be.There's no mention that Somaliland's 1994 1/- coin has a PM mintmark.The Jamaican 1982 $1 medal-coin that commemorates the 1982 Football World Cup has a CHI in circle mintmark,but Krause makes no mention of it.
Eric,
You need to get Numispedia up & running,as we,the numismatic community,can do a better job at compiling a numismatic catalogue.
Aidan.