I notice that Eswatini has now been divided up into different “Issuing Authorities”, one for the Kingdom of Swaziland, and one of the Kingdom of Eswatini.
I'm going to address this frankly in the remainder of this message. Please do not take personal offense.
What utter nonsense is this? This catalogue is being destroyed by continual changes to how things are grouped!
There was absolutely no change in authority in Eswatini when the preferred name of the country was changed. “Eswatini” is, literally, just Swazi for “Swaziland”. Now we have a ruler that doesn't match the issuing authority's historical period and a completely artificial distinction where none should exist. It is really unnecessary and deeply problematic. We cannot keep on subdividing things that are one entity by finer and finer criteria based on non-numismatic attributes, like what language the people in the country want you to use when you refer to them.
Why are we doing this with Eswatini and yet we have not done the same with Côte d'Ivoire, which made an equivalent name change request back in 1986? (See final paragraph under “Etymology” here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Coast) There, the country name hasn't even been changed, but when it comes to Swaziland everything is slashed apart!
Bear in mind, I am the catalogue referee for Eswatini. I have had absolutely no warning of this change, and I do not think it is necessary or appropriate.
Based on that, I would like to request that this change be rolled back. If you must, just use the new name. But know that to most English speaking people, it's still called “Swaziland” just like Deutschland is called “Germany”.
This article suggests that there was a official change in name, and what justifies the split in the catalog, in my eyes, is that the coins from the different periods bear different names.
Over the past year or so, there has been more and more push back against our practice of grouping the different names of a country under a single issuer (see the latest example). The main argument is that many collectors sort their coins according to the name of the country as written on the coin, and grouping makes the older names invisible in the list of issuers.
For this reason, we still kept Eswatini as a single issuer, and you can browse all the coins of Eswatini together by clicking “Eswatini” in the list of issuers, but we also added the various names directly visible (denoted with italic font and dates).
Names of Eswatini visible in the list of issuersNames of the Democratic Republic of the Congo visible in the list of issuers
This article suggests that there was a official change in name, and what justifies the split in the catalog, in my eyes, is that the coins from the different periods bear different names.
Perhaps it will be easier to understand if I explain why I have a problem with this.
On my Improvement Hints page, I've been notified that the “Selected ruler is not within the date range of the coin.”
When I go to the coin, I see these options under “Issuing authority”.
When I go to "Ruling authority" I have these options.
For some of the coins, this triggers the warning. For others, it seems that it does not.
What are we trying to do here? The first screenshot shows two names for the same place. All the coins come from there. They are coins from “Swaziland” or “Eswatini", depending on what you call it in your collection. Why does Mswati no longer have a kingdom? Why does he appear to have been different kings at different times?
We are coin collectors. Why are we trying to record the political history of the world in the most minute detail instead of just enjoying our coins, which may or may not be from Swaziland? And if we want to record the full history of the world, we need to think about how we are getting less accurate over time because of problems like how many King Mswati IIIs we want to land up with!
I think everybody is very reactive to the Swaziland name change because the new name starts with an “E”. But it doesn't really - the “E” is a prefix to the word Swati and the real spelling is “eSwatini”. I think people who are not used to how African languages work probably see this as a much bigger than it really is. It definitely doesn't merit two different kingdom listings.
Over the past year or so, there has been more and more push back against our practice of grouping the different names of a country under a single issuer (see the latest example). The main argument is that many collectors sort their coins according to the name of the country as written on the coin, and grouping makes the older names invisible in the list of issuers.
For this reason, we still kept Eswatini as a single issuer, and you can browse all the coins of Eswatini together by clicking “Eswatini” in the list of issuers, but we also added the various names directly visible (denoted with italic font and dates).
Names of Eswatini visible in the list of issuersNames of the Democratic Republic of the Congo visible in the list of issuers
On my Improvement Hints page, I've been notified that the “Selected ruler is not within the date range of the coin.”
Thanks, we'll investigate that. Previously, Mswati III was listed twice: first under a “ruler group” Eswatini and a second time under the ruler group Swaziland. I merged both, as they are indeed the same person, applicable to both country names. Perhaps this had side effects. We will check it.
what is being done with all these names meaning South Africa (I hope nothing), but I just wonder, why nobody has started to play with those?
Legends in the 11 Official Languages of the Republic of South Africa:
Afrikaans: Suid-Afrika English: South Africa Sesotho and Sepedi: Afrika Borwa Tswana: Aforika Borwa Xhosa: uMzantsi Afrika Zulu: iNingizimu Afrika Ndebele: iSewula frika Venda: Afurika Tshipembe siSwati: Ningizimu Afrika Tsonga: Afrika Dzonga
It seems the fix to Swaziland and eSwatini has been badly handled but we mustn't loose sight of the fact that the name changed on both the coins and banknotes. This has to be our primary guide unless we have some clear factual reason to ignore it.
Former Numista referee for banknotes from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Saint Helena.
The name ‘eSwatini’ was chosen by King Mswati III, as some people were confusing Swaziland with Switzerland - something that really angered the King himself.
Some Swazis objected to having the name of their country in a purely English name.
