Hello,
On Numista, we have different concepts for the issuer and the ruling authority.
Here is our definition of an issuer (https://en.numista.com/help/add-or-modify-an-issuer-in-the-catalogue-191.html)
An issuer is any:
- organised community (for example, Australia, Commune of Nice, Abbey of Saint Gall, Rauraci tribe),
- association of such communities (for example, Eurozone, West African States, joint notgeld issuers),
with a claimed right to issue currency.
An issuer may have different currencies, governments and names throughout its history.
An autonomous part of a bigger issuer that issued coins for local usage are also considered as issuers (for example, various Roman provinces).
Only when the territory of an issuer suffers a sudden, significant, and long-term change, resulting in a discontinuity of its currency, then the change result in a different issuer. For example the Soviet Union and modern-day Russia are listed as different issuers.
Issuers may be split into different issuer periods when the name of the country changed significantly (for example, Swaziland / Eswatini, British Honduras / Belize).
The fact that Mozambique became independent does not make it a different community. The coins are still used by the same people on the same territory. Only the form of government changed. On the other hand, the government is represented by the ruling authority.
Here is our definition of a ruling authority (https://en.numista.com/help/add-or-modify-a-ruling-authority-in-the-catalogue-192.html)
The ruling authority is an individual head of state represented on numismatic or exonumia items (for example, Charlemagne). Heads of state are understood in a broad sense, including monarchs, regents, governors, lords, ranking nobles or clergy, leaders, officers, usurpers, etc.
When heads of state are not individually represented on numismatic or exonumia items, the ruling authority can be the form of government (for example, free imperial city), a specific government or governing body (for example, second republic), or a distinct historic period (for example, German occupation, sede vacante). For siege coins, the siege or the war is also recorded as a ruling authority.
The advantage of having different concepts is that people are able to filter the catalogue by issuer, by ruling authority or both depending on their need.
For example, you can search for all the coins ever minted for Mozambique or only when it was a People's Republic.
We sometimes create distinct “issuer periods”, which are historical subdivision of an issuer and appear in italics in the list of issuers. We create them when the issuer changed name, in order to facilitate searching the catalogue. That's why you can find “British Honduras” even if it's just a former name for the country that is now called Belize.
