MORE ON BANKNOTE CATALOG WEB SITES

I read the article on a Bank Note site for everyone. Good idea. Don't know if you are familiar with this site http://www.banknote.ws/ but it has quite a number of world entries and has never let me down when I'm trying to find out where a banknote came from and its Pick Number.

I don't believe we've discussed this site before. In October Aidan Work of Wellington, New Zealand proposed "a banknote catalog & gallery website" modeled after the coin catalog website at http://en.numista.com . Another reader suggested https://colnect.com/en/banknotes as a starting point.

The Bank Note Museum is an active site, with new additions as recently as this week. It features a long list of contributors from around the world, but the source of individual images is not noted. Only the Pick number, denomination, issuer, date and printer are described.

I reached out to readers who had commented on Aidan's proposal. -Editor

I checked the Ceylon 19th century issues on that site. Very curious that it has the same serial numbers for 1850-1856 1, 2, 5 pound issues as the Colnet site as well as same the very limited 12 images for the Private Banknotes when I list 97 types with images in my website notes.lakdiva.org/main.html. I'm not sure which way the images went: banknote.ws registered in 2006 and colnect.com in 2007.

I have never understood why these private banknotes were listed by Krause as specialised issues and ignored in The Banknote Book as they were the only currency used in Ceylon from 1856 to 1884. Very similar issues are listed for Hong Kong as General Issues. A comprehensive world catalogue of paper money is not an easy task and needs specialized interest and knowledge of each country.

It's also possible that the same contributor uploaded the images to each site.

Any comprehensive catalog, even a commercially-produced one, requires a great deal of input from specialist collectors and researchers. Since the invention of language (and later, the printing press and internet) people have learned from and built upon the work of others to increase and diffuse knowledge in every domain. Collectors are a hive of bees - specialists discover information, generalists compile and classify it, and our collective knowledge continually increases.

Coincidentally, the publisher of The Banknote Book has just rolled out a nice update of his BanknoteNews.com site. -Editor

"The site has been completely revamped with a clean, modern design, and robust foundation that provides many improvements. Visitors are now able to comment on posts, search for posts dating back over a decade, and share items via Twitter and Facebook. The categories group related posts by interests such as Commemorative, New Note, New Variety, Polymer, Industry, Auction, etc. Check it out today, and let us know if you have ideas for additional improvements."

What I am proposing is an open project that is peer reviewed by fellow numismatists. In other words, numismatists being invited to contribute. Nutista should be an online banknote, coin, community currency, & postal order catalog & gallery website.

I am very familiar with http://www.banknote.ws ,but there is still room for improvement as far as including catalog listings from other catalogs as cross-references goes.

Far too many errors remain in both the Krause & Pick catalogues. I admire Owen Linzmayer for his hard work in rectifying some problems regarding some of the banknote listings.

I would be more than happy to contribute to Nutista - especially in the areas of banknotes,coins, & postal orders from British Empire & British Commonwealth countries.

Nutista should also have education as its aim as well.

Instead of grading & pricing, it would be serial number prefixes being listed ('AA','AB','AC',etc.).

Of course, Replacement notes, Specimen notes, & pattern coins would be listed separately.

This is where numismatic museums & numismatic societies can come in handy from the contribution perspective.