Template talk:Infobox Coin

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Contents 1 Mintmarks 2 Catalog Number 3 Optional troy oz and inch parameters added 4 Inscriptions 5 Place to put note? 6 Template design "too clever"? 7 what about edge image

[edit] Mintmarks

How about addin a section for mintmarks, or put it into years of minting? Joe I 17:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Catalog Number

In the templete. How many coins actually have one there? Dime doesn't. And what catalog? Joe I 12:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Optional troy oz and inch parameters added

I added an optional mass in troy oz and diameter and thinkness in inches field. I thought that would be useful considering that many coins are 1 troy oz. You can see how this looks at American Buffalo (coin) or below. MJCdetroit 16:25, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Here are the entry fields from that article:

{{Infobox Coin |
  Country             = United States |
  Denomination        = $50 |
  Value               = $800 (Proof), 4-5% above spot (Bullion) |
  Unit                = [[United States dollar|U.S. dollars]] |
  Mass                = 31.108|
  Mass_troy_oz        = 1.0001 |
  Diameter            = 32.7 |
  Diameter_inch       = 1.287  |
  Thickness           = 2.95 |
  Thickness_inch      = 0.116  |
  Edge                = Reeded |
  Composition         = 99.99% (24K) [[Gold]] |
  Years of Minting    = 2006–Present |
  Catalog Number = BA6 |
  Obverse             = 2006 American Buffalo Proof Obverse.jpg |
  Obverse Design      = [[Native Americans in the United States|American Indian]] |
  Obverse Designer    = [[James Earle Fraser]]'s design of the [[Indian Head nickel|Buffalo nickel]] was modified for the American Buffalo coin. |
  Obverse Design Date = [[1913]] |
  Reverse             = 2006 American Buffalo Proof Reverse.jpg |
  Reverse Design      = [[American Bison|American Buffalo]] |
  Reverse Designer    = [[James Earle Fraser]]'s design of the [[Indian Head nickel|Buffalo nickel]] was modified for the American Buffalo coin. |
  Reverse Design Date = [[1913]]
}} 

Why just troy ounces? The United States Mint wasn't satisfied with just the two systems it had been using, troy and metric; in the 1960s they also added the avoirdupois system to their repertoire, changed the dimes (and quarters, etc.), which had been $40/kg, to $20/lb avdp. The dime, for example, is now 0.0800 oz avdp or 0.005 lb avdp (200 dimes to an avoirdupois pound). This doesn't work out so nice and even in troy ounces, however. It is 35 troy grains; with 480 of those grains in a troy ounce, it is ⁷⁄₉₆ oz troy, which as a decimal is 0.0729166666... oz troy.

As a matter of fact, none of the current regular-issue U.S. coins are round numbers in troy ounces, are they? The pennies used to be ¹⁄₁₀ of a troy ounce, but the modern zinc ones are metric, 2.5 grams. Gene Nygaard 04:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inscriptions

Would like to add an Inscriptions line, preferably under the Design line. Inscriptions stated within the design feild clutter and confuse the actual design. Lots of work changing back and forth, so wanted to ask ya'll first.. Joe I 20:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I can do that. I would also like to add orientation. Just a question, what kind of values would this "inscription" have? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 08:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Basically just the same as the "design" field. One or two lines to write the short phrases. See Marine Corps 230th Anniversary Silver Dollar for a crowded design field. As for orientation, what would be the easiest way to express that? Simply "up" or "down" or "reversed" or "horizontal"? Joe I 08:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Coin v.s. medallic --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 09:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, I see. So simply an "orientation" field with "coin" or "medallic" as the value within? Sounds easy enough. Maybe add it in with edge and composititon, since it's a built-in feature of the coin. No problems. Joe I 09:52, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Place to put note?

Many of the British decimal coins have gone through a number of changes in design, size, weight etc. over the years. The infobox information seems mostly to relate to the currently minted version, which is potentially misleading, especially when earlier variants may still be in circulation. I have made some edits to British two pence coin and British one penny coin to try to cover the earlier versions, but then it struck me that it might be better to have the infobox cover the current version only, and insert some explanatory text at the top of it, reading something like "This data relates to the currently minted standard circulation coin. See the article for variants and earlier versions." I would do this but I cannot find a way to insert the text at the top of the box. Any thoughts? Matt 17:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Template design "too clever"?

A peculiar and (to me) unhelpful feature of this template is the way that the values you enter are messed about with for display. For example, in British two pound coin the entries "Value = 2.0, Unit = [[Pound sterling]]" combine to read "2.0 Pound sterling". It should read "2 pounds sterling", but to achieve this one apparently needs to set "Unit" to "pounds sterling" (plural) which seems wrong.

Another example: "mm" is automatically appended to the dimension, so in British one penny coin, the entry must read "Thickness = ([[Bronze]]) 1.52 mm<br>([[Steel]]) 1.65" with "mm" stated in one place but not another. Furthermore it seems impossible to get the text to read

1.52 mm (bronze)
1.65 mm (steel)

as I want.

OK, so neither of these is a huge deal, but I just feel life would be easier if you just typed exactly what you wanted to appear, without having the template trying to be "clever" with it. Matt 13:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] what about edge image

Many coins have interesting edges (for instance, the new US dollar coins), so it would be nice to have an image of the edge, as well as the obverse and reverse. --WhiteDragon 15:29, 18 July 2007 (UTC)