There were 505,000 coins minted, that's not low for a Pacific Island country, in fact it's pretty large compared to some of the countries like Fiji. The cat value of $20 in VF also indicates while it might be a scarcer date, it's not rare. This isn't the only coin in the Numista catalogue that has the "Rare" comment beside it which really isn't rare at all. The term is overused on E-bay, do we need to flood our catalogue with it? In fact I don't think we need it at all now that we have the sale prices going in. Rare is a subjective term. I propose that all the "rare" comments in the catalogue should be stripped out.
Quote: "neilithicman" Rare is a subjective term. I propose that all the "rare" comments in the catalogue should be stripped out.
I completely agree with this suggestion, and as a referee, I have removed every single "rare" tag I've come across. Team members I've consulted seem to be in agreement.
For me, if a year line truly is rare, there should be justification for it in the comments section (of the coin page, not the year line); for example, I removed the "very rare" tag on the date line of this coin:
And replaced it with a more detailed context and explanation in the comments above it: "Very rare, the ship carrying majority of the mintage was sunk in December 1941- early 1942 by the Japanese during WWII; many re-strikes and copies."
Completely agree, we have way to many coins marked with rare that often are even very common.
the only times I add a coin marked as rare is when the Krause catalogues list no value under the coin and lists in the catalogue as rare, this concernes only very few coins that truly are rare.
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Quote: "CassTaylor"For me, if a year line truly is rare, there should be justification for it in the comments section (of the coin page, not the year line); for example, I removed the "very rare" tag on the date line of this coin:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces21708.html
And replaced it with a more detailed context and explanation in the comments above it:
"Very rare, the ship carrying majority of the mintage was sunk in December 1941- early 1942 by the Japanese during WWII; many re-strikes and copies."
People can see by the mintages and purchase prices if a coin is rare. I agree that details should be provided if there is a reason like this one where many of the coins from one year are lost or melted down, but you still don't need to say that they're rare, just say "majority of the mintage was sunk in December 1941- early 1942"
That should be adequate shouldn't it? Guys who collect obscure ancients where only a handful of each specimen exist would laugh in your face if you told them that a coin with 10,000 remaining specimens is rare. Some of the PNG and Cook Islands coins have mintages of only around 2,000 or so for some years
I would agree with that, except this is a case where the coin has a very large mintage and no coin values (given it's rarity), so to the uninformed it would seem like a common coin; i.e. it is very rare because the majority of the mintage was lost. I would not have included the "very rare" prefix to my comment there if, as you say, it had been a more obvious case, like this one, where even the most obtuse can tell the coin's "rarity" by the recorded mintages.
I get that you're concerned about the use and subjectivity of the term rare, but using that word informally with adequate context in comments shouldn't be too much problem. So worry not, that original point still stands; comments of just a word "rare" in date lines without explanation should be removed.
Yes, yes, for the love 'o God please remove all of them. It cheapens and devalues the other, often well researched information found on the site. Not only are they misleading, they don't even have the benefit of consistency. It's not uncommon to see coins tagged as "rare" while other coins in the same series with far lower mintages remain tag free!
Until the day arrives that we can agree on a set of rarity markers that takes into account population size (at the times of issue), current demand, attrition and resmeltings, "rare" has as much meaning as "nice".
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I agree !
The notion of rarity is a subjective : the definition we have of it is different from one person to another so it doesn't belong to the catalog.
Low mintage can be indicated, as some informations such millesimes hard to find for X reasons, in the comment section.
I agree to remove "Rare" "Extremely rare" even though I have added them to some pattern coins I have added, but keep "Unique" and "?-? are known to exist" in rarer coins.
Quote: "Monninen1"I agree to remove "Rare" "Extremely rare" even though I have added them to some pattern coins I have added, but keep "Unique" and "?-? are known to exist" in rarer coins.
Yes I agree, keep comments about mintages, but remove ambiguous, generic terms like "rare"
Quote: "Monninen1"I agree to remove "Rare" "Extremely rare" even though I have added them to some pattern coins I have added, but keep "Unique" and "?-? are known to exist" in rarer coins.
With all due respect, we should be very careful about using the word 'unique' since that would suggest that only one example exists.
Just because you can't see it ... doesn't mean it isn't there - Anon.
I would rather have automatically imported some price lists from auctions, and then the price would eliminate need for rare comments (not tags!). You all are also free to request deletion of these comments.
Catalogue administrator
Status changed to Solved(Jarcek, 12 Sep 2018, 09:44)
Status changed to Started(Jarcek, 12 Sep 2018, 09:44)
Quote: "Jarcek"I would rather have automatically imported some price lists from auctions, and then the price would eliminate need for rare comments (not tags!). You all are also free to request deletion of these comments.
In my opinion other than the absolute top-tier, rarest of coins (1839 Una and the Lion £5, etc.), a past auction price wouldn't really look all that much better that a random "rare" tag without any context whatsoever.
A better explanation of rarity would be in the page's comments, e.g. "most of the 1925 mintage was melted down" or something, if mintage numbers themselves don't indicate a coin's population clearly enough.
Quote: "AmerSalmeh"there is no way to search in year line comments sadly for members, or see the history of their change
so not sure the robot can do it either?
Maybe in some ways, on the agenda to check.
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