Talk:Early United States commemorative coins

Untitled

At this point, this page is a simple list of the early commemoratives with a little history at the beginning. It's a little light, but I'm not sure how far to go here.

Can someone give a little direction about how much detail Wikipedia is looking for? Would they want a page on each coin? or is that just too much? Should I start a CoinWiki? I have the technology to do so... that would allow people to input stuff that should never be in a general encyclopedia, like the 14 doubled dies made in 1992 on some coin from Bolivia? But that would be useful in a CoinWiki...

I welcome comments from the masses.

Have you seen History of the English penny? It's been much admired, despite being rather long and detailed. My personal view is that Wikipedia is the union of a generic encyclopedia and specialized "encyclopedias of X" for various X, including numismatics. Based on experience with stamp stuff, I'd say to dig down gradually; in most cases, a 1-2 page description of a country's postal history plus a few representative images exhausts my information (and interest :-) ), but then there are articles like British Guiana 1c magenta that go into depth on a single stamp. Another rule of thumb I use is that as an encyclopedia, WP works better as a summary than as a replacement; there is a whole book on the Inverted Jenny cited in the stamp's article if the reader wants maximal detail. But these are just my views, and basically you can go just about as deep and wide as you have sources to cite and energy to edit. Stan 07:08, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Naming

I have a question. I've recently done my first article here. First, I welcome any criticism as I believe that I can get roughly 1 early commemorative done per week. If I am making any errors in style, It would be terrific to know now. Also, is it acceptable to create a user subpage as I did to "play"?

My real question is though, how to name the article. There are so many options.

Oregon Trail Memorial Commemorative Half Dollar

Oregon Trail Commemorative Coin

Oregon Trail Half Dollar Commemorative

Oregon Trail Memorial Half Dollar Commemorative Coin

Well, you get the idea. Since this seems to be the first one, I think its important to get this right. Opinions? Bobby 22:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

You can get a sense of commemoratives here: Marine Corps 230th Anniversary Silver Dollar (anniversary silver dollar shouldn't be caps) 2000 Library of Congress bimetallic ten dollar coin Modern United States commemorative coins and Early United States commemorative coins. I think I would prefer a naming such as Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar. And yes a subpage is acceptable and in some cases preferable. You can see mine at User:Searchme/CoinBox2.

You can post on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numismatics page to get a wider consensous. Joe I 00:47, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Joe, I posted over there for some more opinions. Bobby 02:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Norfolk, Virginia Bicentennial vs. Tricentennial

The 1936 Norfolk commemorative coin actually says "Bicentennial" on the obverse. Apparently, the original land grant for Norfolk was in 1636 (tricentennial) and then the city was incorporated in 1736 (bicentennial). Quoting from A Guide Book of United States Coins (2010, p. 296): "To provide funds for the celebration of Norfolk's anniversary of its growth from a township in 1682 to a royal borough in 1736, Congress first passed a law for the striking of medals. The proponents, however, being dissatisfied, finally succeeded in winning authority for half dollars commemorating the 300th anniversary of the original Norfolk land grant and the 200th anniversary of the establishment of the borough." This is, admittedly, and awkward situation, but I would call the coin by a) what it actually says on it and b) by what a standard U.S. coin catalog calls it: "(1936) Norfolk, Virginia, Bicentennial". —Diiscool (talk) 15:33, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

List good to read, but confusing to use - needs reformatting.

The list is super to read, but confusing to use. You can't tell where each link will take you. Some links go to specific coins, but most go to articles about the commemorated subjects. The whole list needs reformulating to take two potential links - one to the coin article (where existing), followed by one to the event/person article (where existing). This can be achieved line-by-line, by inserting an emdash between each coin name and each commemorated event, or achieved by turning into a table, with coin names and their commemorations in separate columns. I came to this list after reading about the Lafayette dollar, and found it linked from here to the person not the coin. I'm about to change it (as others have done with some of the coins listed), but overall the list as formulated has difficulties. Take for example the "Columbian half dollar" - that's the title of the coin article, but the list only refers to it as a 50 Cents Silver "Columbian Exposition" and links to there instead. Sometimes the current "either/or" problem has been got-around by adding a specific demomination and then linking to only the coin article (eg. with "Texas Centennial Half Dollar"). But really, each item needs two references (ready for both potential links) to achieve proper list workability. I haven't time to do it myself, plus I'm not an expert on the 'accepted name' of each coin (some being apparently inaccurate - the one listed as a 50 Cents Silver "San Diego, California Pacific Exposition" links to "California Pacific International Exposition", where one finds an article stating the coin is "today referred to as the San Diego Half"). Maybe it can be categorised as a "job to do" for someone to pick up and run with? Pete Hobbs (talk) 06:11, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

@Pete Hobbs: I am working on creating stubs for each of the coins, and making sure the links direct readers to these stubs and not articles about the commemorated subjects. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 04:11, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

List or prose?

Is this page more useful in the form of a list or prose? If the former, should it be moved to List of early United States commemorative coins? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 04:10, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Another Believer: Hmmm... interesting question! The article IS a "list" already, but needs some "prose" in a better form! My initial thought was "Yeah, rename the page as "List of.. (etc)" but on deeper examination I think "No, definitely not". Instead, the article should be enhanced to match the style of article Modern United States commemorative coins, ie. expand the prose Lede into a better overall description and then turn the rest into sets of tables. I'm not sure whether the tables should be set "currency-by-currency" (as per the present listing) or "year-by-year" (as per the "Modern" coins article), haven't looked at that aspect enough yet, but I'm certain a tabular basis within a Prose article will work best, as each table line can enable two separate links - a link to the individual coin stub created, and an appropriate link to the event commemorated, for those who may want to jump straight to the event rather than go there via reading the coin stub first. Each table line can also carry an image of the coin where possible/existing, added according to whether its stub page has an image. But that comes secondary - the primary aim should be to reset/redesign the page to run as Lede plus Tables.

The two article Ledes (in "Early" and "Modern") should be expanded to support each other too by explaining the difference (ie. the break in production between 1954 and 1982). There was another break between 1939 and 1946 (due to complaints about dealer rip-offs) too, that needs explanatory mention in the Lede of "Early". OKAY - as @Another Believer: is taking the time a trouble to do the stubs, I'll reset/redesign the "Early" article so that his work can be accessed and appreciated in the best light. The "Early" article was created by @KellyCoinGuy: back in 2003 so I'm assuming he won't mind (as it's a long time ago), but I'm pinging him for awareness so that he can comment if he wishes. I'll try to do the work in a couple of days' time. Pete Hobbs (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2016 (UTC)