The article N#167701
cites in Comments the work Erik van Loon, Stuivers 1943 nader toegelicht, De Beeldenaar, (38), 2014, 6 pp. 268-270.
Unfortunately the article is far from be scientific and can not be used.
1. There are statements without references to souses of information. For example, “Alle vierkante stuivers met het jaartal 1943 (8.595.000 exemplaren in totaal) zijn geslagen in Philadelphia.” does not give any reason for the number of coins. References to mint records may help. It is very essential, for we have to divide the whole mintage (is 8.595.000 the whole by the way? it is not written at the moment) between 2 countries. This lack of recourses makes that the statement about the sharing of the two types of alloys between countries can not be taken in to account at all! Thus the main point of the Comments is vanished!
2. There are methodological gaps. For example, “De Nederlandse stuivers hebben een legering van 75% Cu en 25% Ni, daaruit volgt dat ze een soortelijke massa hebben van 8,875 g/cm3. Het gewicht van de stuiver is 4,50 gram, zodat de inhoud van de stuiver 0,507 cm3 bedraagt.” assumes that the volume of an alloy is the sum of volumes. The reality is far from this assumption. It is correct for the mass, but wrong for volume. The schoolchildren learn that 100 ml of water and 100 ml of acid mixed together give less than 200 ml of solution. Among the prepositions to distinguish between alloys the author avoids to mention standard approach on densities. He did not even explain, why he does not want to consider it at all! He operates with densities and avoid to measure them.
The correct approach is to present direct measurements of volume and mass of sample coins, work out the density ρ and use the results. They are the simplest and can be done with sufficient accuracy by a schoolchild.
3. It is not clear how the author dared to give conclusion about origin using 2 copies of arbitrary coins just taken from a coin market (there is no information that the first coin was obtained when the author visited Curacao in 19xx, and the second arrived in change from Suriname in 194x. or anything similar).
Mijn licht afgesleten exemplaren uit 1943 hebben de volgende maten en gewichten:
kwaliteit formaat in mm Massa in g Bestemming
ZF 17,95 x 17,92 4,18 Curaçao ?
F 18,05 x 18,03 4,27 Suriname ?
Even next 12 coins does not help: there is table but there is no simple analysis: the coins numbers ... are from Curacao, and other coins - from Suriname. The table was not researched for the type of alloy (by color or by density or by direct chemical research, the rest of article is many words of apologies, why this was not done), and the table is in methodological contradiction with the previous table where the country of origin is written.
The correct approach is to visit Curacao and Suriname and measure coins from hoards (usually local museums can be of help). Check difference in masses, densities, alloys, or what ever the researcher wishes then proceed: that yes, such procedure will help a collector to distinguish between this and that.
To summarize, lack of resources, methodological gaps in research and in presenting the collected data do not allowed to consider this article as source for Comments of Numista. We should not care about standards of De Beeldenaar, they may publish whatever they wish of any quality, but the article does not help to make such the statements in Numista.
It is recommended to rewrite the Comment using the verifiable data, most probably form standard sources, thus the reference to the article should be removed.
