I'm just putting aside two 1 franc coins from 1958 and 1960 from Ruanda-Urundi, which is written on the coins together with Belgisch Congo Belge. Ruanda-Urundi was a United Nations trust territory, 1946–1962, which is not really mentioned in Numista.
Would it be possible to have numista to treat Ruanda-Urundi correctly?
Could you elaborate please? I'm not clear on what you are asking for.
It sounds like your coins are like this one: N#6465
Those were issued for use throughout the Belgian Congo, as well as Ruanda and Urundi. Previous Belgian Congo coins where also used in Ruanda and Urundi. It took us a long time and a lot of debate to get these grouped together correctly. Let's not make any changes until we understand properly what you need, and how to reflect historical reality in the catalogue correctly.
Easy. Ruanda-Urundi is not in your declination of Belgian Congo.
Well, perhaps not easy. By “declination”, do you mean “definition”?
I would say that you are probably correct, but perhaps not for how coins were issued.
Belgium administered Ruanda and Urundi with the Belgian Congo and there were no coins for Ruanda and Urundi until 1954. In the same way, South West Africa used South African coins when South Africa was administering that former German territory.
Only in the last issue of Belgian Congo coins did they add “Ruanda-Urundi” to the coins, perhaps because of a growing realisation that independence was coming, and the three territories would be heading in different directions.
To substantiate this position, I'd like to ask the following two questions:
Where are the Ruanda-Urundi coins from 1918 until 1954?
Where are the Belgian Congo coins from 1954 until 1960?
I know that Krause has the Belgian Congo “Ruanda-Urundi” issue separated out as a different country, but they were actually wrong. I don't think we should separate these any more than we should separate Swaziland and Eswatini. ;-)
I don't understand how that addresses anything to do with how the coins were issued.
What I am saying is that this coin… N#6465 …was not issued for Ruanda-Urundi alone. It was issued for the whole of the Belgian Congo, and also Ruanda-Urundi. That's why it says, “BELGISCH CONGO BELGE” and “RUANDA-URUNDI”. Why would a coin that was only for Ruanda-Urundi say “Belgian Congo”?
Where is the Ruanda-Urundi in the definition of BC?
Can you tell us what you would like to see there?
For me, there are so many problems. You can't just add “Ruanda-Urundi” to the “Belgian Congo” label because they weren't included until 1922. So you would have to split “Belgian Congo (1908-1960)” into “Belgian Congo (1908-1922)” and “Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi (1922-1960)”. But that makes no sense because “Ruanda-Urundi” only appears on the coins from 1954 onwards.
So, it is much easier just to treat this like a labelling change on the coins and keep things as they are, because they are much better than how they were before, when all of this was grouped under DRC, and also better than how they were before that, when the Ruanda-Urundi coins were treated as being separate from the Belgian Congo.
I'm not very much for the “issuer”, but please tell me where the KM#4 (1fr 1958) fits in?
Normally the KM# starts with #1 inside a country and the the numbers increase. In Belgian Congo you have two different KM#4, where is the logic going?
I don't want to make things more complicated than they already are, just logical, and for the moment it is isn't. Forget about issuers and get back to countries. Now it's becoming a mixture of geography and history and everybody does like he wants….
I'm not very much for the “issuer”, but please tell me where the KM#4 (1fr 1958) fits in?
Normally the KM# starts with #1 inside a country and the the numbers increase. In Belgian Congo you have two different KM#4, where is the logic going?
I don't want to make things more complicated than they already are, just logical, and for the moment it is isn't. Forget about issuers and get back to countries. Now it's becoming a mixture of geography and history and everybody does like he wants….
Hi Ole
Thanks for the conversation tonight. You have made me think about many things related to the Numista catalogue and I want you to know that I agree with you about the logic.
I have sent out some private messages to our site admins asking some questions, and I shall message you privately in a few minutes.
As far as I understand the coin N#6465 was issued for Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi, just like other coins with issuer Belgian Congo (N#2963 for example) which don't mention Ruanda-Urundi, as these territories were administered together.
The fact that the SCWC classifies them as a different “country” called “Ruanda-Urundi” and restarts numbering from 1 is just one source of information among others, and we should not stick to it blindly.
I'm not aware of the private message discussions.
For the moment, I understand that the issue raised in this topic is that SCWC readers may have difficulties to map the SCWC with Numista. So I made “Ruanda-Urundi” searchable in the list of issuers.
If you believe any other change is required, please let me know.
