bobh

Thanks. I see you're in Switzerland. The letters went out Wed & Thrs so look for it early next week. Steve did run the test and provided many helpful ideas which I incorporated in the final design, but in the last analysis, he feels the system is too complex. Bob Julian was sent the files, but I never got any feedback so I doubt he ran the test.

 

As far as full fledged client server, you are correct. However, the idea is to migrate Access tables to SQL server while retaining the Access front end for queries, forms, modules and reports. Access supposedly can handle 20 and perhaps 80 or more simultaneous users, but it's not a full fledged transaction database, which is out of the question unless somebody is prepared to invest several man years in coding.

 

Even so, before coding could start, the codes, function, record layouts, screen and report formats etc have to be understood, agreed on and really nailed down. If nothing else, the Access tests should identify whether the function is what's needed. At least it's a stake in the ground. Computerization has been talked about for a dozen years, but as far as I know, has not gone anywhere, at least in a relational database sense of computerization.

 

Regards, Ron

Your letter just arrived today!

I have done some work myself towards setting up a database for my own collection. It's certainly not easy! And I collect only a very small subset of what might be possible (no patterns, not all periods or emperors, no jetons, no errors except some very few published varieties...and since they are varieties, maybe they aren't really errors?).

The project, as you describe it, would be a "one-stop service" for anyone interested in any aspect of (Imperial) Russian numismatics. I think it is probably too ambitious as such and might be difficult to realize considering that many important reference works might still be under copyright. And there are a myriad of different copyright laws depending on where and in which country each publisher resides, etc.

Take error coins, for example. This is a fascinating area with very little published documentation. It would certainly be a great service for collectors of error coins to have as much documentation, pictures, auction results, etc. in one place because there is so little of it elsewhere. Maybe start with this and expand later?

Also, I might add that every serious collector of Russian coins probably already has works by Uzdenikov, Bitkin, Brekke, the RNS supplements and maybe more modern additions to the literature. If you merely duplicate what is already there, you won't attract much interest from those collectors. Some websites, such as the Russian site "Monetniy Dvor", are attractive because they concentrate mostly on auction prices but also have fantastic images and are relatively complete ... however, not necessarily scholarly like Brekke, Julian, Uzdenikov, RNS publishings, etc.

Of course, I hope you realize that I am playing the "devil's advocate" here. If the project succeeds, it would certainly be sensational! And I would certainly be willing to contribute some (limited) time and effort. I do have a laptop around here somewhere with Windows XP, but Office is not installed on it. I will try to install the runtime components (and if I have any hard drive space left after that, maybe I can actually open the Access databases).

Even so, before coding could start, the codes, function, record layouts, screen and report formats etc have to be understood, agreed on and really nailed down. If nothing else, the Access tests should identify whether the function is what's needed.

As a database developer with 10+ years of professional experience, you really need to come to terms with the basic relational design of the schemata BEFORE doing any work on the front end (i.e. forms, reports, etc.)

We really need to see some DDL here.

A computerization project of the Russian Numismatic Society has been initiated at rnsdb.x10.mx/rnsdb (case sensitive). Volunteers are sought to download and test 3 Microsoft Access 2007 databases for literature, coins and medals, beginning with literature.

 

This is a revisit of a computerization project in 1993 which was put aside for various reasons. The home page has all the information and links to the downloads of the software and readme instructions.

 

RNS members have been notified, but the project is open to all those fascinated with Imperial Russian numismatics.

 

Ron

Strange ... I have been a member since 2008 or so, yet I received no notification except for this forum posting...

If I can contribute my 2 kopeiki here, I would say:

1. Ditch MS-Access. It's not (and never has been) a full-fledged client/server RDBMS, and it is not going to like having lots of people access it from a website! If you are stuck with a Windows server, go with SQL Server instead. Better yet, migrate everything to MySQL if you are on a Unix/Linux hosting environment, and set up some pages using PHP.

2. I cannot test anything because I have used Linux practically exclusively since 2007. However, if you can extract the DDL necessary to recreate the database schemata perhaps in a different database (after some tweaking ... Access is infamous for its non-standard SQL implementation), then I would be happy to try it out!

3. Have you contacted Steve Moulding about this? He is more than knowledgable about database design, and he has been working in this area for some years now, IIRC (in addition to knowing more about Russian numismatics than just about anyone else on the forum, possibly with the exception of Bob Julian).

Good luck!

 

Can you see where the error is? A bit of Russian would help but you can compare it against a picture and see what the error is.

"II" instead of "П" in "КОПѣЙКА"

Welcome to CoinPeople, AurumAmcilla!

I have been collecting antiques and antiquities for several years now. I`ve started to collect ancient coins and I purchased some coins years ago but only in bronze or silver. My father used to have a large collection of antique vintage coins, I am more interested about ancient coins but with so many fakes around, it is a quite difficult task. I would be tempted to buy one or two gold coins on Ebay but looking at the several comments and warnings about fakes , I don`t know what to do considering also that gold coins are not cheap at these days ! I do not have the time to go around all day and look for numismatic shops ect.. this is why I would prefer it to buy these coins online. I have also checked the ' Black lists of Fake coins sellers of UK and USA Ebay ' ect.. but these guys might have already changed their ID reason why they have 100% positive feedback. Any good advice ?? or previous experiences to share ? Thanks :-)

The hardest and trickiest part about buying gold coins online these days is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to send any gold coins through the mails. I buy copper and silver coins on eBay all the time, but no gold coins these days. Also, the supply of nice gold is just not there on eBay anymore.

Most people collect gold in one of two different ways: either as bullion, which you can find at any nearby dealer; or as rare numismatic items, in which case you are certainly better off buying at a reputable auction venue. Many auction houses will still be able to send your winnings through insured and registered mail. But I would stay away from eBay, and not just because of the fakes -- although that is also a very big problem on eBay. Even otherwise reputable dealers will sometimes not know the difference; fake Russian gold shows up even at auctions such as UBS, Künker and Gorny & Mosch once in a while.

Good luck!

bobh,

thanks for reply.

As of mintmaster on edge - i couldn't find it. Edge looks like this http://imageshack.us...67/tor5rub.jpg/

As of weight - 4.29-4.31gr ... though my scales are not that good ... margin of error is pretty high

The mintmaster's initials should look like this (for 1898 ... Cyrillic "AG" for Apollon Grasgov):

In 1904, you should see "AP" (Cyrillic "AR" for Alexander Redko).

The weight seems correct to me. 4.3g would be exact; however, most coins show a slight difference of perhaps up to 0.02 +/- for these smaller gold coins. For ten roubles, something like 0.05g was allowed, I believe ... Uzdenikov explains this very thoroughly.

Although sometimes you can spot a fake coin from pictures, there is no way to tell for sure if a coin is genuine just by looking at pictures.

I don't see anything suspicious about the pictures. Check the weight of the coins and the mintmaster initials on the edge. If these are correct, then they are probably genuine, although I am sure you could find better examples of these since these are two of the most common years.

Here I put together the most obvious differences. Many thanks to bobh for pointing at the neck line (Adam's apple) difference!.

There is some speculation as to whether the Soviet government used 1909 dies to strike 5 rouble gold coins. Bitkin, for example, assumes that both the 5 and 10 rouble restrikes were both from dies of 1911, but 5 rouble 1911 coins are so rare (much more so than 1909, at any rate) that I would guess only the 10 rouble 1911 coins are mostly restrikes. These are also very common, whereas 1909 and 1910 ten rouble coins are scarce. Severin, in his book about gold and platinum, remarks that 5 rouble 1909 gold coins were "currently flooding the market" back in the late 1950's or early 1960's when fake Russian coins were not nearly as much of a problem as today.

Could it be that they used different obverse dies at times? The original 1909 coins (5 roubles) were presumably struck in similarly small quantities as in 1910 and 1911, and probably not too many different dies were used, all from the same hub. But if the Soviets struck gold coins in quantity, they wouldn't necessarily have wanted to prepare (or have been able to prepare) any new dies from pre-revolutionary hubs, but merely took what was still usable in a fairly indiscriminate manner.

Just IMHO, of course.

These are two coins from my collection. Several differences in the portrait are noticeable: the earlobes, the tip of the nose, and especially the shape of the nose bridge. These differences cannot be attributed to different light angles etc - I took both pictures pretty much the same way.

Most coins shown on the m-dv site are of the upper type. The lower portrait is the same as seen on the 1903-1904 coins. Kazakov does not mention two types for this year. The Conros catalogue lists the upper type as their portrait B (249923) which it certainly is not (portrait B is an early type, named by Kazakov as 'die of 1898', and seen until 1902). The lower type is the Conros type C (191355, but their photo accessible from that link is not very good and one can't be sure).

Most of the 1910 five-rouble coins shown in m-dv seem to be of the upper 1909 type, but in 1911 the portrait gets slightly changed again. I wonder if anybody has seen this the same way I do.

Good catch, altyn!

I definitely see what you are seeing; the nose tip differences are especially obvious.

Also, I see a difference in the "Adam's apple" (кадык), similar to that on the 1897 gold coins (15 and 7-1/2 rouble). I wrote about the varieties of 15 rouble coins in one of the recent JRNS issues, and I've been planning on writing about the similar varieties of 7-1/2 rouble coins which appear to correspond to the wide + narrow rim varieties.

These 5 rouble varieties are news to me, though. Congratulations on another variety discovery!

Nice!

These are getting harder and harder to find these days at an acceptable price.

10 kopecks 1796

Lets congratulate our own Bob Julian with this honor.

 

Well deserved !

Most definitely so ... congratulations, Bob!

I can't see any traces of overstriking on the coin surfaces, and the edge should show more traces of the rope edge if there was a re-edging involved. But I'm certainly no expert on these things, although I have studied them to a certain degree.

Sigi, did you measure the diameter and thickness? If overstruck, it should be somewhat wider and flatter than a regular pyatak.

Thanks very much for posting these links, Sigi! Fascinating historical documents which don't show up very often in auctions these days.

If I ever made a coin it would probably look like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/261044087006

Actually, it's made of chocolate, and it got a little hot.

I would like to know when the complete catalog will be available? The preview is nice, but I want to see if there is something I can afford!

I think it was a mistake of Severin... which was "copy-pasted" by Bitkin...

Actually, the one without cape (Bitkin # 132) is scarcer than the one with cape in relation of approx. 1:5 to 1:6 (my statistics).

You are absolutely right. With cape is popular and without I would say that statistics go even deeper 1:12 or more ..I remember moment when I was trying to find one and how many "popular" versions I had in my hands.

Interesting that the site at Monetnyi Dvor ( http://www.m-dv.ru/catalog/id,1006/type.html ) lists 7 or 8 pages of Bitkin 131 (with cape), whereas there are only 2 pages of Bitkin 132 (without cape).

Very nice! (for both of you)

Thanks for the clarification ... this is exactly why I love to hang out here!

Hi Bob, it's a pleasure reading your lively post - it's like sitting there myself. Waiting and waiting - then unexpectedly buying something along the road.

Sometimes to a later regret.

But your patience paid - congratulations!!

As to the coin above, the 2012 WOLMAR catalog also lists the two rim variants as follows:-

Узкий кант------- VF $700 / XF $850

Широкий кант----VF $770 / XF $970

Sigi

Thanks, Sigi! Too bad that there was practically no Russian copper to speak of ... (otherwise, maybe you would have gotten on your bike and pedalled all the way to Zurich, then we could have finally met in person)?

And thanks for the Wolmar reference. I believe that the wide rim variety is much rarer than the prices would indicate. Not extremely so, but I do see many more narrow rim 7-1/2 r. coins offered than wide rim ... maybe 5 to 1 or something like that? I am just estimating ... would have to do a systematic study of different auction venues such as I did on the 1913 Tercentenary rouble for the JRNS if I wanted to make a serious comparison.

Cheers!

http://www.sixbid.co...viewlot&sid=597

(sold in the March 2010 Künker auction for EUR 260.-, bought by me for CHF 100 )

Looks like I lucked out on this one ... this is BITKIN 131 ( R ) (St. George with cape).

R. W. Julian lists the other variety (St. George without cape) as scarce, but this one as common, interestingly enough. H. M. Severin agrees with Bitkin. Maybe this was a typo in the Julian catalog?

So it is possible that mine isn't the ugliest one in existence!

I haven't had a chance to see yours, Steve ... but these things are so rare, it's probably nice to own one in ANY condition (as long as it's genuine, that is).

Once in a while, they do show up at auctions in AU or UNC ... possibly even proofs of these exist. I saw one (probably about MS-63) several years ago at a UBS auction, and it was quite a beauty to behold!

As to the coins in the present auction, they were all 3 roubles, probably the most common dates (I didn't check). Those CAN be found in decent condition, but they regularly bring more than what these sold for.

There was a gold error coin -- I think Catherine II period -- that made for some interesting bidding action. I think it went for CHF 11,000 or so.

I went there today and asked about Mr. Chaponnière. They are not partners with Hess-Divo, but co-operate on auctions together. Other than that, they are two separate businesses.

Of course, the relationship to F.R. Künker is even more interesting ... his son is CEO now of Hess-Divo.

Bobh, is the relatsioship known between Hess-Divo and Chaponniere? I do know him. He used to work for Alain Baron and then went on his own.

Is he now part of Hess-Divo?

I don't know myself exactly what relationship there is. But this is at least the second time that they have mentioned Chaponniere in their auctions.

I can ask them in a day or two when I pick up my coins at their office.

Congratulations Bobh! Looks like you had a good trip.

Thanks!

(although it was a very SHORT trip, since I live in Zurich!)