Talk:Moldavian Bull's Heads

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move to Moldavian Bull's Heads per the nominator's revision, the most problem-free of the suggestions.Cúchullain ^t/c 17:34, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

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Aurochs' head issue → Bull's Head stamps or Bull's Heads – The most WP:COMMONNAME for these stamps is Bull's Head and while Aurochs is the actual name of the animal depicted on the stamps that is not the commonly used name for the stamps. More common is "Cap de bour". While a Google search is not a definitive source it is certainly a reasonable indication, so make you own decision, but I see the pattern.

• "Bull's Head" stamp - 399,000
• "Cap de Bour" stamp - 28,900
• "Aurochs' Head" stamp - 519

As early as 1863 Edward Orpen used the term in his album and catalogue, as did John Edward Gray in 1871 and in 1874 both Stanley Gibbons was calling the stamps by the same name as was Edward Pemberton' Stamp Collector's Catalogue issued in the same year. That name has persisted to this day in English. However, an oddity is that Sandafayre, a long time stamp company but not as old as Stanley Gibbons, refers to them as "Moldavian Bull". ww2censor (talk) 04:30, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

In my printed references, Linn's Philatelic Gems 1 and a couple British publications use "Moldavian Bull", while Michel has "Ochsenkopf", which translates to "ox's head", and my old Minkus catalog also has "oxhead". The Treasury of Stamps has "bull's head". ("Moldavian Bull" has the advantage of distinguishing from other bull's heads design, such as Mecklenburg's.) The aurochs reference is idiosyncratic in any case. Stan (talk) 21:46, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• Agree. Ecphora (talk) 01:08, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Please state your reasons. - Biruitorul ^Talk 15:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - I understand that reliable sources in English trump those in other languages when it comes to determining English usage, and I understand the principle of verifiability, not truth — the stamps do show an aurochs (Bos primigenius) rather than a bull (Bos taurus), but that's less relevant than what the sources call the stamps. Having said that, I would be inclined to favor modern (post-2000) scholarly Romanian sources over English sources from the 1860s and '70s. Could we have some modern English sources on what these stamps are called? I think only that would settle it as far as determining contemporary English usage. - Biruitorul ^Talk 15:16, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

The publications I mention are from the 1980s and 1990s. The aurochs thing may be technically correct, but is pretty arcane - I'm sure I could go to a stamp show here and say "auroch's head", and not one dealer would have any idea what I was talking at, and I would explain it by saying "Moldavian Bull". Stan (talk) 16:33, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I would suggest the Romanian name Cap de Bour, because it is fairly common, the least ambiguous, and used by several authoritative sources outside Romania. The "Bull's Head hits" arguments are unconvincing, since many (most?) of the results are fansites, albums and booklets by various individual collectors, whose jargon and folklore are not necessarily indicative of anything encyclopedic. As for the 19th-century sources, concerning the sort of nomenclature that passed for translations back in the day, we shouldn't really bother. Indeed, I couldn't really find any RS mention of the stamps as "Auroch's head": the translation is painstakingly accurate, but that sort of accuracy has not yet hit English publishers upside the head, as it arguably should have. We can of course mention all the existing variants and the translation issue somewhere in the article's lead. Dahn (talk) 06:23, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I'd be fine with that—we lose the English in the title, but explain the meaning in the text; we keep an accurate title and gain one that has actually been used, quite widely in fact. - Biruitorul ^Talk 13:41, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Are there *any* printed English-language sources that use "cap de bour"? None of mine do. The assertion "fairly common" is going to need a little more backup in the form of citations of English-language usages. My own philatelic library is smallish, but five of my English-language books do mention the issue, seems like their usage ought to count for something. Stan (talk) 23:17, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

• Slightly revised name suggestion: Let's bring the reference right up to date. David Feldman is one of the world's most respected philatelic auctioneers who is also an extremely knowledgeable expert and active philatelist. Recently I fortunately acquired one of his hardcopy catalogues: the May 2011 rarities catalogue that are are always super high quality printed reference books worth keeping. On pages 85-92 of the bigger downloadable All World catalogue, available from this webpage, were Romanian rarities of with there were several Bull's Heads lots. Throughout the catalogue he only uses the term Bull's Head prefixed Moldavia, so, to take Stan's reason to differentiate from Mecklenburg, we should add that to the article name giving Moldavian Bull's Heads. The definitive work on these stamps is Heimbuchler's The Bull's Heads of Moldavia book, published in 1995, whose joint title in English also confirms the usage. The term cap de bour is nowhere to be seen in Feldman though I don't have Heimbuchler to check. BTW I did not say a Google search was definitive, what I said that a Google search gives us an indication and though clearly Bull's head is favoured it shows so significantly higher than any of the other terms that gives us a good indication of its common use. ww2censor (talk) 04:53, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Sandafayre link

I disagree with the inclusion of this link. I can think of several reasons.

• Per WP:ELNO, we should avoid "links to manufacturers, suppliers or customers". Sandafayre is a commercial entity; its purpose is to sell philatelic material. In fact, it had one of these very stamps at one point, and this page was set up to encourage buyers. Now, I know the user adding the link did so in good faith, but this encyclopedia is, per WP:RS, "based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", and commercial pages don't fit into that rubric, even as external links.

• Per the same policy, we should avoid links containing "factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research". I can spot several factual inaccuracies right away:
  • "Galati" (actually Galați) has a population of ~230,000, not 330,000 as claimed. And it is indeed "part of Romania", but not "still part of Romania", as there was no Romania under that name until 1862, and these stamps date to 1858.
  • "national symbol of both Moldavia and Moldova" - no, because Moldavia is not today a "nation". At most, it's a regional symbol.
  • "Atelia Timbruli" - if an article is going to reproduce a phrase in Romanian, it had better do it right or not at all; this just makes it look amateurish. The correct spelling: "Atelia Timbrulu" or, in modern Romanian, "Atelierul Timbrului".
  • "Auroch" - no, it's the Aurochs.

• The grammar and spelling are, frankly, ghastly. Several examples:
  • No period at the very end.
  • The second paragraph is one long run-on sentence. It should be broken up by a period and a comma.
  • Same with the third paragraph, to which is added the fault of repetitiveness ("whilst... "whilst").
  • "Republic" is a common noun; no need for the capital letter.

• Who is the author? Where is the bibliography? Who performed the fact-checking and the copyediting? (If these happened, they were clearly not done very thoroughly.)

• Per WP:ELYES, we should link "sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues". I don't believe this applies. The page is not neutral, is inaccurate in several respects and in other respects adds nothing to what we already have. - Biruitorul ^Talk 00:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree, this article is presently evolved past the Sandafayre link, and may even pose a risk of circular reference-confirmation, if they enhance it with bits collected from here. That said, it would be good to have an English-language external link or two, right now it's hard for a non-Romanian editor to doublecheck the content. :-) Stan (talk) 21:37, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

While Sandafayre is a commercial enterprise they do host lots of great material, such as the Stamp Atlas which is not available elsewhere online and lots of fairly difficult to find stamp images. They also have lots of philatelic articles which do not self-promote, but if you want to take it down, do so. However, as Stan suggests, some English language links would be good additions which was my intention without knowing if everything was accurate or not. ww2censor (talk) 21:46, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I suppose I have no strong objection to its remaining for the time being - perhaps something more comprehensive in English and online will turn up at some point. - Biruitorul ^Talk 23:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Moldavia/Romania

I removed the added link because a) WP:CITELEAD b) the source is a company, not an academic publication c) it doesn’t do much to clarify the dispute.

To reiterate what I said previously: yes, everyone knows that Moldavia existed as an independent state until early 1859, and in personal union with Wallachia until 1862. This is not some big secret. Everyone also knows that any stamp catalogue starts its “Romania” section with the bulls’ heads, and that this issue starts off the Postage stamps and postal history of Romania — just as, for example, the topic of Postage stamps and postal history of Russia includes the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.

Furthermore, the text makes abundantly clear that Moldavia issued the stamps — but given how they are catalogued and generally considered, these still fall under the wider umbrella of Romanian philately. No one is hiding or misleading anyone.

I suggest you find a more constructive preoccupation, but at the very least, please seek consensus before imposing changes to which I’ve raised a considered objection. — Biruitorul ^Talk 16:55, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Update: I’ve also removed the citation to the catalogue: again because of CITELEAD, and also because the source does not attest the fact that the issue is “generally catalogued under Romania” — we would need a source specifically making that claim. — Biruitorul ^Talk 16:57, 30 June 2024 (UTC)