Hello all, I was wondering if you could clarify a doubt I have about some entries in this catalog.

I can't figure out what the numbers after the slash in a date represent. For example, in Chile's 2/12 Centavos, for the year 1898, there are 6 entries: 1898/86, 1898/85, 1898/88, 1898/5, 1898/87 and 1898. So, what are all those numbers about.

(Please bear with my newbiness, I just started collecting ).

Schepeler, what those numbers mean is that it's an overdate, i.e. some of the older dies used for striking earlier coins were reengraved as the mints didn't have enough time or finance to prepare new dies. This is one of the example:

Russia 1825/4 10 kopeks



What happened is that in 1825 the mint decided to use an older die which in this case is 1824 and reengrave from a 4 to a 5. This is quite interesting and sometimes unusual date engraving can increase a coin value. Hope that helped

Oh yes, it was very helpful . Only problem that I see now, is that sometimes it may prove difficult to tell apart each variety.