What should be written down as description of obverse and reverse?

Sometimes I'm wondering about the descriptions in some coin sheets,

- Some referees insist on copying "official descriptions" from whatever central bank or catalog issuer. But who are we? Are we that central bank, are we copying a Krause publication, or are we an independent website? Is it allowed at all to copy texts from these sources?

- Broken English: More than half of all coins with Lizbeth say things like: "crowned bust right". I'm not native English speaking, but I would interpret the single word "right" after a design element as a description of its position on the coin like "above" or "below" (located at the right part of the coin), but even that would be rather broken English. Krause uses "left" and "right" for just everything and you have to guess what they mean. I think the words left and right as directions always need a verb or preposition before, right?
This coin, for example, said:

CiteerCrowned bust right. / Norwegian Forest cat right. Triskeles in shield at top, birds in flight in background, cat standing on platform lower right

I couldn't help but write this out with these rather disruptive wordings:

CiteerQueen Elizabeth II facing right / Norwegian Forest cat walking right, facing left. Triskeles in shield at top, birds in flight in background, cat standing on platform at lower right, walking right, facing right

I think we don't really need such descriptions, do we? Is it really crucial to know the directions in which the queens/cats/birds are looking/standing/flying? We could just make an end to this and delete this information.

The only coin where I would say "Lions left" is this one

- As we have fields to enter the lettering of a coin and fields to translate the lettering, wouldn't it be enough to use these fields and not to repeat the lettering and translation in extensively worded sentences in the description field?
This coin for example could just be described as

CiteerNational Coat of Arms of the Russian Federation, with the mintmark at the bottom right; [the inscription above is framed by two double rhombuses]

Why should we say the same with overly detailed words that just make the text longer and repeat what is detailled below, with the "Russlish" of the Central Bank of Russia (using a dash instead of the verb "is" is done in Russian language, but not in English)? The position and lettering of the inscriptions can be seen on the coin image and read from the text written down below.

Usually, I prefer "at least something" over more complex descriptions. But I understand your point. I have already been correcting some crazyness in description.

Only answer to this is to work harder and smarter and correct it all.

I guess it assumes you would know what "bust right" means without longer sentences. I would assume it is a type of shorthand. I have found it useful as there are many coins that have different facing busts, say NGC for example may have a coin listed but no images, that means relying on the shorthand description to know what type it is.

I thought the descriptions were universal?

I get the point you are making though.

The description field is basically what is used to search on the catalogue when you enter key words. So the best description is one that simply lists the elements of the coin.

So with a Britannia penny you might say something like "Britannia seated, trident, helmet, shield, ship, sea"

Me too, I don't like the description type that the referees for Russia, Belarus, Ukraine,... use. I think it is enough- even better- to give the information only once and I don't understand why they want to repeat the lettering in the description field. I had some discussions about this but without a clear statement of Xavier this will never change.
Because guidelines https://en.numista.com/catalogue/contributions/instructions.php were never updated since 2013 there are many questions like yours.

I think this type of description my come from people who don't collect modern coins as much. All of my Medieval / Ancient catalogs describe coins in this manner, and it is often small difference in lettering or design that distinguish different types (as the dies were hand carved). With modern production this type of description probably isn't as useful, but leave any hammer coins alone when you are tidying up.

I can speak only for myself, but whenever I request changes, I never try to rewrite something or change some values. Sometimes though, corrections are needed - for example:

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces5455.html Obverse was described as a "wearing a HAT"

Or when some coins had thickness of 30 mm.. and so on. But I would never try to argue for a change I know nothing about.

Citeer: "Jarcek"​https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces5455.html Obverse was described as a "wearing a HAT"

​

Citeer: "Jarcek"​https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces5455.html Obverse was described as a "wearing a HAT"

​That's hilarious!
Well, at least s-/he tried

I would rather write "Athena facing left" or something (cuz it is Athena, right?). Don't know if it's important to mention the halmet at all.

Who knows, maybe one will have the other side unreadable, and will search for helmet. But I am pretty sure he/she would ever try to search for a hat.

Hello,
Several reasons why we can try to described:
- when there is no photo
- when details make the difference between 2 coins, and seeing the pictures, it is not obvious, or a a glance, you don't see immediately the difference. Ex left or right, it may seem silly but sometimes you don't realize immediately that that is the difference. ex. https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces33525.htm
- Search engine. With no key words, it does not work of course. The word ship gives > 800 coins, bateau on the french side only >500. Lazy frenchies
- There may be a crazy collector (if we are not all crazy ) who collects only coins with helmets ! then he may want to search coins with helmets on the catalogue. Since a list of key words is not readable, we try to make a sound sentence that adds a bit. Where is the helmet ? On Athena's head or above the coat of arms ?
- As mentioned above, older coins.

But right, let's do sound descriptions. And that is a job that one learns with time. Minimum the lettering. Then a bit of description with key words, and finally some extra info on the coin and its variants.

Enjoy, André

So now I have again a question.
Is it okay to include the lettering on coats of arms to the lettering information?
This is done quite regularly, and when I added such lettering, it was usually validated.
Not so the referees of Zambia and Venezuela, they think such information may not be included.
I think it could become a bit complicated if we decided to include only one type of lettering and not some other type, easier would be to just "include all" - the more lettering is existing on the coin, the longer the lettering information will be.
Why should a user not want to know what is written on a coat of arms?

so I was searching for coins with coat of arms, and I saw inscriptions from
Albania
Botswana
Bulgaria
Canada (different)
Chile (1 has it, 1 not)
Congo Dem Rep
Costa Rica
Cyprus

and in addition only the two from Angola didn't have it included

Right. It should be included systematically.
It is not always, and add it is work. Moreover, it is often not really informative.
E.g. Panama. "Pro mundi beneficio" is written of few of the sheets. But "Panama" is so large that the motto is not really useful.
You are welcome to do modif requests . I'll validate.

When I add coins with coat of arms, I always jut write National Coat of Arms. I never describe it. I also never write out the text of the CoA on the lettering section. But that's me.

But is that enough? Just to take an example I recently reduced the description of this coin https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces64141.html to practically just say "coat of arms" because it was quite suspicious (it said something about denmark) but it's been bugging me since then. In this particular case we have the three crowns of sweden, a norwegian and a swedish lion (I think) and the coa of house Bernadotte, this isn't the current national coa of sweden so just writing "coat of arms" could mean anything. Shouldn't it be described properly, including printing out lettering if it had had some?

In some old Guatemalan coat of arms,i believe that there is a variant, but I'm not sure which coin from the top of my head. It normally reads " libertad 15 de Septiembre de 1821," where as the variant reads " libertad 15 de Setiembre de 1821." Notice the absence of the p in September. If no one writes that detail in sure a lot of non Guatemalan collectors will miss it. I'm sure this is true of other coins as well.

Citeer: "deft"​But is that enough? Just to take an example I recently reduced the description of this coin https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces64141.html to practically just say "coat of arms" because it was quite suspicious (it said something about denmark) but it's been bugging me since then. In this particular case we have the three crowns of sweden, a norwegian and a swedish lion (I think) and the coa of house Bernadotte, this isn't the current national coa of sweden so just writing "coat of arms" could mean anything. Shouldn't it be described properly, including printing out lettering if it had had some?

​Not only is that useful, but interesting !
The links between Norway, Sweden and Denmark were complex and are reflected on coats of arms and lettering of coins, and mottos. One can learn a lot if it is explained.
And that may make a difference between Numista and a "normal" coin catalogue.

Another nice example:

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces39936.html
If you don't write the motto that is around the coat of arms, you miss the story of the Garter (see lower left corner of the arms). I made that description and it took me a while to understand why what is usually known as the motto of Great Britain was on this Mecklenburg-Strelitz coin

i would plead for a clear subdirectory for the discriptionfield:
something like this:

obverse

Image:

Lettering:

Engraver:

By just adding image: we are more forced to describe whats on the coin to see. Much of the letters i can read myself its the image or the head that i,m unformiliar with. And that,s mostly the most interresting part.

take this coin for instance:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces1193.html

the image on the reverse is a fragment of a public monument called Departs des volontaires de 1792. Made by the sculptor thats on the observe side of the coin.

There already is a field called "Description with keywords" for obverse and reverse. It's just empty in your example coin.
Or did I misunderstand something?

EDIT: Yes I did, please disregard this post