Cataloguing Russian fake coins (counterfeits, fakes, imitation, fantasy, replica, copy, false) on OmniCoin.com

[Guest rnsdb]

Steve, if you look back to the top of Ex's post which started all this on April 24, you will see I was the first responder on April 27 on why Omni Coin wasn't a good idea. Among my suggestions was

e. 6 images are needed, not the 2 allowed by Omni. Obverse/reverse/edge for both the original and the forgery HERE

 

NGC and all the authenticators would compare the suspect coin to the original. Rarity, size, wt, fineness etc would all enter into it. If it's a pattern with 2 known examples, it's not going to get authenticated

 

As regards JRNS, it's a stretch to call snail mail hard copy a download. The $25-30 membership for 2 jrns issues and 2 newletters seems like it would have been sufficient to cover costs. In any event, RNS has been defunct for 2 1/2 years. What's happened to monies from back issues since then? Is it your view that pdf downloads of the articles should or should not be made available to collectors?

 

There are 25 pdf's listed at wikidot. Since the charter calls for volunteers to upload auction files, I assumed some of those 25 came from volunteers, but if you scanned them or acquired them on the internet, could you make them available as downloads?

 

Ron

[STEVE MOULDING]

OK...I think the wikidot PDFs you're referring to are those indicated as being in 'the library' i.e. my library. There was no volunteer uploading, nor...as I said...was it possible to do so.

 

There was no charter text specifically calling for pdf uploads by volunteers. The whole site was really to document auctions...what...where...etc, not to provide an upload/download facility. It was really quite limited in scope.

[STEVE MOULDING]

:

Among my suggestions was

e. 6 images are needed, not the 2 allowed by Omni. Obverse/reverse/edge for both the original and the forgery...

:

I agree with this. I like the comparison to the original and edges are helpful.

 

:

As regards JRNS, it's a stretch to call snail mail hard copy a download.

:

No idea what you're talking about. Download means download. For those who wanted a paper copy they could get that, but most sales were, as I said, PDF downloads.

[STEVE MOULDING]

 

I still have a few interesting examples to add before I move on to your coins, so I am more then happy for Steve and anyone else, who can help, to start uploading coins from this archive. Only please, do so coordinating here with others. There are some 20 sub-folders there. Start with folder 1 ("1-1803") and move to 20 ("ФУФЕЛА"), reporting here what folder you going to work on, so nobody else, doubles up on uploading the same images.

Thank you!

 

20 ("ФУФЕЛА") - Mostly Done

[Guest rnsdb]

<<<certainly everyone's got different opinions of what obverse and reverse of various coins would be>>

 

Gx, that's incorrect. The obverse & reverse are defined by the images in Mikhailovich, Brekke, Severin, Uz, Julian and are generally followed by the auction houses. If you buy a DVD of the Corpus for $10 on ebay, you will have the obverse/reverse images of virtually every Imperial Russian Coin ever minted.

 

There was an article in JRNS 25-14 obverse/reverse but it dealt with the orientation of the coin when you flipped it over. That is, were both sides up or the obverse up and the reverse down.

 

Ron

[Guest rnsdb]

Steve, I was under the impression for 5$, you were selling left over hard copies of JRNS, not realizing they were pdf downloads. I can understand why you wouldn't want them put up for free on the wiki rnsb database site. For the 2 1/2 years since the demise of RNS, how much are we talking about? The articles submitted over the years were a volunteer Wiki effort by hundreds of people.

 

Not realizing you had pdf scans, would you be willing to send me the pdfs for issues 26-91? I can upload and put the links up, and see if volunteers will do the article split using the free software in the forgery task

 

Let Wiki be the guiding light

 

Ron

[Guest rnsdb]

"This Site is a customizable piece of the Internet where Users can edit content, upload files, communicate and collaborate."

 

Since it was Wiki and with the above charter, I assumed some of the auction pdfs came from volunteers. Since they're all yours, would you be willing to put them up as free downloads, either on your site or the rnsdb database site? I'd also like to put the links in the literature database, since it lists most of the important auction catalogs, but somebody would have to run the test database. Not having anyone willing to do that is why I put the JRNS links and the forgery links separately, even though they're integral to the test database

 

Let Wiki be the guiding light

 

Ron

[STEVE MOULDING]

<<<<There was no charter text specifically calling for pdf uploads by volunteers. The whole site was really to document auctions...what...where...etc, not to provide an upload/download facility. It was really quite limited in scope.>>>

 

"This Site is a customizable piece of the Internet where Users can edit content, upload files, communicate and collaborate."

 

 

*Finally* tracked down what you're talking about.

 

http://russian-coin-...-is-a-wiki-site

 

Not my text...that's a wikidot standard page that comes with their sites, though I guess there's no way to tell that. Oh well. Anyway...that wiki is no longer maintained. I will be releasing a 2,500+ auction database on rnumis at some point.

[Guest rnsdb]

Steve, it's important to realize that unless you're trying to sell jrns pdfs or auction pdfs, I don't care what web site or server they're stored on. It could be rnumis, rnsdb, the Smithsonian or redtube.com for all I care.

 

While the databases are SQL computerized versions of Brekke, Severin, and Harris, prices realized at auction, and an inventory of coins owned, they're also holding places for links. To jrns articles, auction catalogues, coinpeople posts, the Poltava museum, etc. All I want in the literature database for the Master Record of the JRNS issue is to put in the link to the pdf. For the Master Record of the Hess Tolstoy auction to put in the link to the pdf of the auction.

 

I don't care where the link goes or anything about traffic to rnsdb. Nobody's counting mouse clicks.

 

Let Wiki be the guiding light

 

Ron

[STEVE MOULDING]

I still have a few interesting examples to add before I move on to your coins, so I am more then happy for Steve and anyone else, who can help, to start uploading coins from this archive. Only please, do so coordinating here with others. There are some 20 sub-folders there. Start with folder 1 ("1-1803") and move to 20 ("ФУФЕЛА"), reporting here what folder you going to work on, so nobody else, doubles up on uploading the same images.

Thank you!

 

Ex...this is what I've done with the candidate rar.

 

DIR 10 ("5-1850 платина") - Done

DIR 12 ("50-1898") - Done

DIR 19 ("Фальшаки") - Done

DIR 20 ("ФУФЕЛА") - Done

 

We're up to about 174 fakes now. I added a few more denominations and a couple of other cosmetic improvements. Edges to follow.

 

[extant4cell]

Excellent! I am going a bit mad looking through all the fakes I've ever encountered, collecting their images and cataloguing them. Have a few places to look at. Still stuck in the first one and it feels like I only scratched the surface. Looking at the images of the fakes long enough leads you to believe they are real coins... brrr... I'll need some brain reprogramming with decent catalogue pixs once we are done... Thank you for looking after this project and adding more coins, Steven!

 

Ron, no hard feelings. What you want to do sounds like a lot of work that will be getting obsolete quickly in my opinion. But it is admirable that you keep pushing for it and want to research every fake as a proper coin, who knows may be you will do what you want to do one day and it will work and when I see it I'll go WOW! For now, I feel that even just putting up the 2 pixs per coin is a hell of a job, and most of this ugly looking material drains my energy. If you like I am happy to share my "collection" with you once I am done, but please do not ask for more for now. Cheers!

[Guest rnsdb]

Ex, as I said earlier, it's not the quantity of images, it's what you can do with them. And without a whole bunch of other things, you can't do much. You're going to drown in a tsusami of 800 forgery images with no ability to sort, filter, and relate them to Brekke/Severin/Harris descriptions and images. If Steve adds original images, and a couple important factors such as danger level and rarity and perhaps eventually some day all 8000 Brekke/Severin/Harris descriptions in order to be able to identify the forgery, and then figures out how to sort, filter and link it all, he's going to wind up with the test database

 

But even if you had all this, without a lot of volunteer effort to put some descriptive analysis and arrive at a danger code, it's a puzzle to me what you're going to do with this tsusami of forgery images. Ran Zander did this with the 1912 Napoleon ruble HERE . But none of submissions have this analysis. All the comments are blank, but it's obvious why.

 

You've drained yourself to what end I don't know. I wasn't looking for anything from your collection, only to test out the database.

 

Ron

[extant4cell]

Ron, no idea why I would want to sort out the fakes and forgeries in a fashion you described, unless I would collect them.

My idea for this source is the form of warning. As long as it can be sorted out by year and denomination, I am happy. Besides any database can be altered and grow as the time goes by.

 

Steve, there is a problem with the new denominations. Try to update this entry to 2 roubles:

http://www.rnumis.co...ingle&rf_id=249

Please see what you can do. I kept it on "rouble", not "2 roubles" as it didn't keep this denomination when I updated it.

 

Thank you!

[STEVE MOULDING]

Steve, there is a problem with the new denominations. Try to update this entry to 2 roubles:

http://www.rnumis.co...ingle&rf_id=249

Please see what you can do. I kept it on "rouble", not "2 roubles" as it didn't keep this denomination when I updated it.

 

Thank you!

 

Working now

 

[extant4cell]

Great!

[Guest rnsdb]

Ex, there's more Russian collectors than just you. You should try & figure out what they might want if you care about Russian numismatics Wiki

 

As for sorting and filters, ask for the following to help you with your fatigue in dealing with 800 forgeries

1. See only copper forgeries

2. See only plate money forgeries or only 5K plate forgeries

3 See only Siberian forgeries

4. See only Ivan III silver forgeries

5. See only pattern forgeries

6. See only overstrike forgeries

7. See only novodel forgeries

8. See only 5K Siberian forgeries

9 See only forgeries of extremely rare to excessively rare

10 See only forgeries of only one known example

11. See only forgeries of orginals worth 1000 or more

12 See only Constantine ruble forgeries

13. See only BM forgeries

14. See only lettered edge forgeries

15. See only forgeries danger level 9 and above

 

All sorted by year/denomination or denomination/year or czar/year or metal/year/denomination or metal/denomination year etc etc. You will see these parameters are all in the Brekke/Severin/Harris 8000 coins in the test database. Why should you have to enter the year or pick the denomination from the drop down box (there should be 41 denominations listed) or enter rarity etc when all that stuff is already there? You're not entering the metal so 5K could be a copper forgery or a silver forgery. There's really no way to control the same forgery being entered 10 times.

 

There's lots more and it will be interesting to see how it unfolds. The big thing, of course, is the absence of any connection to information about the original

 

Ron

[STEVE MOULDING]

Ex, as I said earlier, it's not the quantity of images, it's what you can do with them. And without a whole bunch of other things, you can't do much. You're going to drown in a tsusami of 800 forgery images with no ability to sort, filter, and relate them to Brekke/Severin/Harris descriptions and images. If Steve adds original images, and a couple important factors such as danger level and rarity and perhaps eventually some day all 8000 Brekke/Severin/Harris descriptions in order to be able to identify the forgery, and then figures out how to sort, filter and link it all, he's going to wind up with the test database

:

But even if you had all this, without a lot of volunteer effort to put some descriptive analysis and arrive at a danger code, it's a puzzle to me what you're going to do with this tsusami of forgery images.

:

 

 

I hesitate to post this as I suspect I'm wasting my time...however:

 

The rnumis fakes interface wasn't supposed to compete, replace or recreate anything but was built to showcase an alternative (and in my view more user friendly) collaborative environment. A "minimal forgery system" that you said would take months/years to build, but which actually only took a few days. I've no real interest in 'danger levels', Brekke numbers, or even fakes for that matter. If people already find rnumis useful, and Ex and gx apparently do, then OK.

 

If the rnumis fakes interface evolves because of user demand (and at the moment this is really just a minor side project for me), and if I choose to add more than just the basic filtering and sorting already there, then so be it.

 

I'd say that if you are dead-set on your interface (and I do believe that's the case) then you have an uphill battle, as you already know. If you want to choose a better route then I'm willing to help. You likely have good data and ideas wrapped in archaic technology. To paraphrase your own quotes...it's all a terrible waste...and it may as well all be on Mars.

 

That's all folks

[Guest rnsdb]

Steve, I too feel like I'm wasting my time, so don't feel alone.

 

1. I'd hardly call Access with 3 million installations, many on local area networks in the world's biggest corporations, an archaic technology. Millions of man years have been spent thinking through data fields, display formats, etc which I know as an IBM systems engineer is no easy task.

 

2. A number of these 3 million have the data tables on remote servers, with the queries, forms, and reports as a front end on the desktop. Hardly an archaic technology, since it closes in on a pure cloud solution and capitalizes on all the man years of work corporations have put into desktop or LAN code

 

3. But in any event, we've always talked about porting the entire thing to the cloud and there's a volunteer task for that so I don't know why you keep bringing desktop up. But if you plan on a cloud solution for Rnumis down the road as a marketing vehicle for literature, coins, and jrns/auction pdfs, which would explain your hostility, you need some things you don't have:

a. An indication of what functions collectors want

b. An indication that if they had it, they would volunteer filling it up with missing data eg images, pdf/other links, values etc

c. The exact specifications of data fields, query relationships, display formats and report formats. You can't start to write code without it.

 

The test database was meant to provide the answer to those 3, each of which is a showstopper to your cloud solution. It works for me as an advanced collector. It has exactly the function I want, I've already volunteered adding data such as links, pdfs, images, forgeries etc. And it obviously has the exact specifications, or otherwise I couldn't have coded it and it wouldn't run. Your view is if you can't have a finished design running on the cloud, you don't want anything,

 

I must admit I never envisioned not a single volunteer would want to try it out, or volunteer even the jrns pdf task which doesn't involve installing anything. And I had spent several hundred dollars mailing out the project to the RNS membership list around the world, so it's not only coinpeople.com. I would have thought a computerized Brekke/Severin/Harris would have elicited some interest. Your experience with Wikidot and Corpus translation appears to confirm lack of volunteer interest.

 

Let Wiki be the guiding light

 

Ron

[STEVE MOULDING]

I give up. Good luck.

[bobh]

(...) I'd hardly call Access with 3 million installations, many on local area networks in the world's biggest corporations, an archaic technology.

 

And how many of those installations are there just because they are included as part of MS-Office Professional or Visual Studio? How many of those corporations actually use Access for anything meaningful? Of all file-based relational database systems, Access is certainly the least scalable, the least conforming to the SQL standard, and the least portable of all. Depending on one's definition of what an "archaic technology" is, I would say that the latest versions of Access might not be archaic (maybe dBase would fit that description better, although it served its purpose in many ways much better than Access ever did), but Access is certainly not suited for any applications requiring a large remote networked client base such as we have been discussing. And I have worked with all versions of Access starting with 2 on Windows 3.1 up through Access 2000 on Windows XP. Access has such a problem with database corruption that Microsoft has even had to develop "repair" tools to deal with that (ever had to use JETCOMP.EXE?) Even professional database developers advocate splitting the GUI front end from the back end, usually so that when the data grows so large that the Access backend MUST be replaced, you can migrate the front end to use attached tables on some other RDBMS with little effort.

 

The Germans have a saying: "Was der Bauer nicht kennt, das frisst er nicht" (A farmer won't eat anything he isn't familiar with).

[Guest rnsdb]

Bob, thanks for your comments. I offer the following comments:

 

1. We're talking about a tiny universe here. 8000 coins, 800 forgeries, maybe 1000 medals, and maybe 4000 literature items. The size of all 3 databases currently is 13MB. Even adding images of all items, we're talking a miniscule database.

 

2. We're talking about a tiny number of users. Zero so far, and maybe 50-100. It's not a Bank of America transaction processing system

 

3. Even in standalone desktop mode, it's highly useful as I can attest. It's essentially a computerized Brekke/Severin/Harris. Everything in the books is in the database. Even if nothing more is done, it's useful as a reference for the next 40 years because you can sort and filter B/S/H so many ways and it's at your fingertips without rummaging through pages. I did all my forgery work from Steves work not by going to the hard copy of B/S/H & the Corpus but to the database. Many collectors don't have these references. Plus it has the ability to add auction prices and inventory a collection.

 

Add in a bunch of images and $values for the coins from Krause and you've got something which I feel is dynamite. Adding images is nothing...just name the file the access ID. Values from Krause is a tabbed rtf of ID, V1, and V2. Even if I were to kick off after images, values, and forgeries were added, with no further updates, it's an indispensable desktop reference good for 40 years. This notion of nothing to download, nothing to install...it just works is a non-sequitur. We do it all the time

 

4. Front end/back end with the tables on a SQL server would simpify data entry, not for images, forgeries or values, but for putting in additional pdf links, adding new names, and especially adding auction prices. The data tables already are split out, not in the test database, but the current desktop I'm using. The table links don't go to a server, but to the data tables on my desktop. I downloaded free SQL express to run my own SQL server in order to try out remote connection with table links to the server to see what's involved in migrating the tables, connecting, and updating. Everything I've read said 200 or more users remotely connected would easily be handled. Plus those 200 wouldn't be all using the system at the same time.

 

5. Steve's cloud approach would be a possibility but porting the code would involve man years, in addition to assuming my specs for data fields display formats, queries, and report formats are solid. So for nobody knows but me whether they are or not. Steve doesn't like the interface Database Control panel, but he never said anything about the data fields or display formats, just that the whole thing belongs on the cloud. But I don't consider Steve to be arm's length, as he's selling books, coins and jrns/auction pdfs. He should have used my drop down list of denominations, as I have 40, which is all there are in B/S/H and the Corpus

 

6. There are some other exotic migration of Access to SQL approaches. Azure, Office 365, etc which promise to move the whole Access database over sort of automatically so it runs as a web page. I haven't looked into those but I think they're overkill besides being expensive. The rnsdb web site with MYSQL is only 3.95 a month and unlimited storage for the jrns/auction pdfs. There's doesn't seem to be a way to store the images on the server, but I haven't really researched it out.

 

To me, stand alone desktop by itself is enough to justify collectors looking at it. But NONE of the approaches are worth diddly if nobody's interested in the function, but especially even if they are, don't want to Wiki any input. And the only way I know to determine that is to have a handful of collectors evaluate it and give some feedback.

 

Bob, your German proverb has some limitations in the world of technology. You, I, and everybody on this board have downloaded trial software. Some we buy, most we uninstall. But I'm certainly glad I tried out the ones I bought

 

Ron

[STEVE MOULDING]

:

I don't consider Steve to be arm's length, as he's selling...jrns/auction pdfs.

:

 

Yet more 'ronsense'. I don't know where this stuff keeps coming from. For the record, I don't sell auction pdfs. Never have. And I'm not selling jrns pdfs either. The RNS used to sell them through the RNS website that I built, paid for, and ran. It's possible they may want to do so again at some point.

[extant4cell]

Ron, I hope you understand that I don't know what SQL, Access, Azur or MYSQL are and I didn't care about them, but I think I start hating these things already...

 

Can I please ask Ron to let us be in our little, however useless in his opinion it might be, endeavor. We thought of something together with Steve, and with his help started this little project. I am very grateful to Steve for investing some of his time, skills and resources into this project, that most people think of as somehow useful. We shared our views on things with you Ron and kept doing this over and over again, just to be polite. Please stop pushing for this project to become something that you want it to become. It is not going to happen any time soon. World is not perfect Ron. If you'd like to make it right - do it yourself. No one stopping you. You cannot make people want the same things that you do, however. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, but so far, I am sorry to say, you wasted a lot of our time on reading and trying to make sense of what you say, and responding to it, with no benefits to our collaborative project. I would really appreciate if you stop this now and let us be. I prefer to have a feel-good atmosphere here, and hope you can do the only admirable thing left - wish us well as we wish you. I hope to deal with you later and have pleasure of relying on your expertise in other topics where it may be helpful. Sorry we misunderstood each other in this topic. As before, I do wish you good luck in your project, and hope you will make it available to people one day in an easy to follow and maintain form, as long as you leave us along and stop irritating us.

 

I repeat, we shared our views on things with you Ron and kept doing this over and over again, just to be polite. Please stop pushing for this project to become something that you want it to become. It is not going to happen any time soon. World is not perfect Ron. If you'd like to make it right - do it yourself. No one stopping you. You cannot make people want the same things that you do, however. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, but so far, I am sorry to say, you wasted a lot of our time on reading and trying to make sense of what you say, and responding to it, with no benefits to our collaborative project. I would really appreciate if you stop this now and let us be. I prefer to have a feel-good atmosphere here, and hope you can do the only admirable thing left - wish us well as we wish you. I hope to deal with you later and have pleasure of relying on your expertise in other topics where it may be helpful.

 

And again, I would really appreciate if you stop this now and let us be. I prefer to have a feel-good atmosphere here, and hope you can do the only admirable thing left - wish us well as we wish you. Good luck.

[Guest rnsdb]

Ex, no. If you don't find the posts useful, simply don't read them. Most forums have a block feature but coinpeople doesn't seem to. Yours is not the only collaborative effort. As far as no benefits to your effort, it was I who suggested the need for 6 images, including edges which Sigi and then Steve later both agree with. I suggested a danger code. I suggested why Omni wasn't the vehicle which prompted Steve to do a better job than Omni ever would have done.

 

You need to be a liitle more tolerant of views you don't agree with and you especially need to educate yourself on how to deal with large amounts of data. I'll help you out with a small record collection example. Try not to give up half way through

 

Text database

Presley, Elvis....... RCA...............LSP 2050........Heartbreak Hotel

Elvis Presly........... RCA Victor.....rso 567...........Heartbrake Hotek

Jonnny Cochran....Liberty...........de3500...........Trains A commin'

 

SQL

5............................23.................LSP 2050.........37

5............................23.................rso 2050..........37

320.......................456............... de3500...........277

 

See? No kopeck, kopeki, kop, kp........ All codes. To filter only Presley, give me only 5's. Only all issues of Presley Heartbreak Hotel, only 5's and 37's. To sort, sort low to high on 1-320 or 320-1. Now you know all that's necessary about SQL. I hope you can see the advantages

 

Ron

[gxseries]

Just a reminder that this is a numismatic forum, not a IT related forum. I have a rough idea of what is going on but it does not seem to be user friendly for the general public regardless of whether we require an open mind or not.