Moldova and Valachia

Hi,

Why are not Moldova and Wallachia a subsection of Romania, being the founders of the modern Romania (Moldova and Wallachia since 1859 as
United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, then Romania since 1866)?

The problem is that Moldavia and Wallachia 1768 edition (for which the coins were issued) included both the territory of Moldavia and Wallachia 1859 edition (which, together with Transylvania, became Romania) and Bessarabia, which roughly corresponds to modern Moldova.
(This is because Bessarabia was still part of Moldavia in 1768, and in fact since the 14th century; it became Russian territory in 1812, and thus was not included in the 1859 United Principalities or the 1866 kingdom.)

I've complained about the bundling of Moldavia and Wallachia, Moldavia, and Wallachia in the Moldova WCC way back in 2016; however, in retrospect that might have been the best of bad choices - Moldavia has to be separate from both Romania and Moldova (it could hardly be put under either), while Moldavia and Wallachia (1768 edition, as the only coin-issuing one*) does not really make sense under Romania either (though it's closer).
We could have put Moldavia and Wallachia under Romania, and we definitely could have put Wallachia under Romania, but Moldavia has to be its own country (or under Moldavia and Wallachia, I suppose) because it's about half Romania and half Moldova, Moldavia and Wallachia probably has to be its own country for similar reasons, and once that is accepted we automatically get either the current situation or a confusing mess.

I still have to admit that Transylvania definitely belongs under Romania, though. I have no idea why is it (still) under Hungarian states.


*) aside from the one 10 ducat coin - and I do mean one coin, as only one example is known - of Michael the Brave from 1600; I'm not sure what happened to the original, which is not on Numista, but this is a modern type commemorating it

What's up with that title of that coin though, in Romanian and additional unnecessarily long.

Hi,

Other issuers would also fit under the borders of present day Romania (Severin, Hermannstadt, Kronnstadt, Nagybánya and Transylvania). I made a thread a while ago :
https://en.numista.com/forum/topic90521.html

Re. the Hungarian states, this has been discussed here:
https://en.numista.com/forum/topic89896.html

After having debated similar topics a few times, I conclude that tying historic issuers to present-day countries is very problematic, especially when history is not clear and politics are delicate. So I think it's best if we keep Moldova and Wallachia separate, as January First-of-May suggested.

Re. Transylvania, I also agree it could fit under Romania, but I think it would work even better as an independent issuer.

The key here is to have a catalog that facilitates collectors to easily find coins of areas they are interested in. A better tagging system here would be a good beginning:


best
strato