> [Maxim](https://wikilayer.org/smee-again) / [Apakabar Cash: Money of the World](https://wikilayer.org/smee-again/apakabar.cash) / How this catalogue is built

# How this catalogue is built

**Contents:**

- [Scope](#scope)
- [Why banknotes and coins are catalogued differently](#why-banknotes-and-coins-are-catalogued-differently)
- [Source hierarchy](#source-hierarchy)
- [Research procedure](#research-procedure)
- [Page structure](#page-structure)
- [Page placement](#page-placement)
- [Image policy](#image-policy)
- [Linguistic conventions](#linguistic-conventions)
- [Out of scope](#out-of-scope)

This document defines how to research and assemble a country page in the Coins section of Apakabar Cash. Following it produces pages structurally identical to [Armenia](page:4611): an intro paragraph, a year-by-denomination matrix, a per-coin specifications table, and a notes block. Only **regular circulating coins** are covered; commemorative and collector issues are out of scope for now.

## Scope

- **Include**: every coin denomination ever struck for daily circulation by the country's monetary authority, across every year of issue.
- **Exclude**: collector coins (precious metals, low mintage, sold above face value), non-circulating commemoratives, and bullion series.
- **Include but flag**: circulating commemoratives that replace standard coins for a year (e.g. Armenia's Marzes series 2012). These belong in the page but should be marked in Notes; a future version of this standard will give them their own treatment.
- **Time bound**: from the country's current monetary authority's first issue to the present. Earlier currencies (pre-independence, replaced monetary systems) are out of scope unless explicitly requested.

## Why banknotes and coins are catalogued differently

The split is shaped by how the two physical forms of money actually work, not by an editorial choice.

**Time depth.** Banknotes go back about 250 to 300 years; the earliest sustained issues are 17th-century Sweden and the Bank of England. Coins go back five millennia, to Lydia in the 7th century BC. A banknote catalogue is current-circulation; a coin catalogue has to also serve antiquity, classical, medieval and modern eras.

**Where dead states fit.** Yugoslavia (1918–2002), the USSR, Czechoslovakia, the Roman Empire all have coins worth cataloguing; none have banknotes in active circulation today. The coin catalogue accepts them as first-class entries; the banknote catalogue has no place for them without breaking the "money you might carry" purpose.

**Multi-country banknotes are common.** The Euro is shared by 20 EU states. The CFA franc serves 14 African states under two regional issuers. The East Caribbean dollar circulates in 8 island states. The US dollar is legal tender across multiple Pacific territories. A by-country banknote catalogue would either duplicate the Euro entry 20 times or quarantine it as an ownerless page.

**Multi-country coins are rare.** Even when countries share a currency, the coin reverses are national. Inside the Eurozone the obverse is shared but every member mints its own reverse: a Greek owl, an Italian Vitruvian man, a German eagle. The CFA franc splits its coin issues into western and central regional series. By-country works for coins precisely because countries do choose their own coin designs even inside a currency union.

**The reader's question differs.** With a banknote in hand the natural question is "what currency is this, and what is on it?". That question maps to a currency entry. With a coin in hand it is "what country issued this, and when?", which maps to a country entry. Each catalogue answers the question in the form it is actually asked.

**Where the two meet.** Issuing central banks (the National Bank of Georgia, the European Central Bank, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank, and the rest) appear in both directions; they are the people who decide what goes on the money. Each bank has its own page reached from both catalogues, so the wiki forms a graph rather than two disjoint trees.

## Source hierarchy

Use sources in this order. When they disagree, log the disagreement in Notes; do not silently pick a winner.

1. **The country's central bank**, official English-language page on circulating coins. This is the primary source for specifications (metal, diameter, weight, edge, official release date) and for which coins are legal tender. URL examples: `cba.am/en/Coins/` (Armenia), `nbg.gov.ge` (Georgia), `cbr.ru` (Russia).
2. **Numista** (`en.numista.com`) for catalogue numbers (KM#, Schön#, N#), mintage figures when published, rarity index, and confirmation of mint location.
3. **Krause Standard Catalog of World Coins** via NGC World Coin Price Guide (`ngccoin.com/price-guide/world/`) for KM# verification and any data the central bank doesn't publish.

When the central bank doesn't publish a figure (this is common for mintage), state explicitly in Notes that no official figure exists, and only then cite Numista/Krause as fallback.

## Research procedure

1. **Confirm the monetary authority and currency.** From the central bank's site, identify the currency, its ISO code, sign, subdivision, and date of introduction.
2. **Build the master list of circulating coins.** Pull the full list of denominations and years from the central bank's coins page. This is the definitive list; no additions from secondary sources without explicit Notes justification.
3. **Pull per-coin specifications from the central bank.** For each coin: metal/composition, diameter, weight, edge, official release date. Save the source page URL.
4. **Cross-reference Numista and NGC** for catalogue numbers (KM#) and any field the central bank doesn't fill (mintage, mint location, die varieties).
5. **Log every discrepancy.** If the central bank says "aluminium alloy" but Numista says "aluminium-magnesium alloy", note it. If catalogues claim a die variety the bank doesn't recognise, note it. Discrepancies become a Notes bullet; they do not get hidden.
6. **Verify the mint.** Most post-Soviet states contract foreign mints (Mint of Poland, Royal Dutch Mint, Royal Mint, Casa de Moneda). Confirm via Numista's mint field and any central bank press releases.

## Page structure

Every country page has **four blocks** as direct children of the country page node. Block titles and order are fixed.

**Block 1, intro (empty title).** One paragraph, three to five sentences. States the currency name, sign, ISO code, date of introduction; the number of regular coin series the country has issued; for each series, the year(s) of issue, the denomination range, the dominant material family; the mint(s) that struck them; current legal tender status. Style: factual, declarative, no marketing voice.

**Block 2, "Coins by year".** A markdown table. Rows = years (every year a coin was issued, ascending). Columns = denominations (every distinct denomination ever struck, ascending by face value). Cells: the KM# if that denomination was struck that year, em-dash if not. Column headers use the native script of the country's currency where reasonable (e.g. `10 լ` for 10 luma, `10 դ` for 10 dram). Caption below the table is a single italic line explaining any non-obvious abbreviations and the meaning of empty cells.

**Block 3, "Specifications".** A second markdown table. One row per **distinct coin type** (a unique KM#, not per year of issue). Columns in this order: KM# (numeric only, no prefix), Year (first year of issue if multi-year), Denomination (in Latin script for readability), Metal (central bank's own wording), Ø (diameter in mm, one decimal place), Weight (in grams, two decimals where the source provides them), Edge ("plain", "reeded", "segmented reeded", etc.), Released (day-month-year of official circulation start). Sort by series chronology, then by face value ascending within series. Caption below the table is a single italic line crediting the central bank, with a link.

**Block 4, "Notes".** A bulleted list, in this order: mintage publication status; recognised die varieties; source discrepancies (each on its own bullet, stating both versions and which the table uses); unique tactile or visual features that don't fit in the table; gaps in the KM# sequence; the mint that struck the coins (restated even if mentioned in intro). Each bullet is one or two sentences. Notes is not where deep history goes.

## Page placement

The country page lives directly under the wiki root (id `4077`), as a sibling of [Coins](page:4610). It is **not** a child of Coins, because Wikilayer stitches child page content into the parent's rendered body, which creates a "list-then-scroll-through-everything" problem.

The page is **linked from** the Coins page (id `4610`) by adding the country name to the `**Countries:**` list in the Coins intro.

Sort_key on the country page: pick something between `10000` and `99999` to keep country pages out of the top of the wiki nav. Alphabetical within that range is fine.

## Image policy

- Use only images from the country's central bank or other official monetary authority. Public-domain national-mint images are acceptable.
- Do **not** use hobbyist photographs, eBay listings, Numista user uploads, or any source whose copyright status isn't clear.
- Caption every image with the source and licence. Example: `*Image: [Central Bank of Armenia](https://www.cba.am/en/Coins/), public domain.*`
- If central bank images can't be uploaded (the host blocks hotlinks and the fetcher can't pass them), the page launches without images; a human adds them manually.

## Linguistic conventions

- All wiki content in English by default.
- Native-script abbreviations are allowed in compact contexts (year-by-denomination headers). Fall back to Latin script if the native script renders poorly or readers won't recognise it.
- Currency names use the standard English spelling (dram, lari, hryvnia), not the romanisation of the native form unless the English spelling is unfamiliar.
- "Plain" not "smooth" or "even" for edges, even when the central bank says "even"; this is a translation harmonisation point.
- "Reeded" not "ribbed", same reason.
- "Bimetal" not "bimetallic" as a noun ("the 500-dram bimetal"); "bimetallic" as an adjective in prose is fine.

## Out of scope

This standard deliberately leaves out:

- Commemorative and collector coins (precious-metal collector issues, bullion series, regional / theme series).
- Visual design analysis: what's depicted on each coin's obverse and reverse, who designed them, what the imagery means.
- Historical context beyond what fits in the intro.
- Pricing and rarity for collectors: Numista's USD valuations, NGC grading premiums.

These may become separate standards layered on top of this one. For now, a Coins country page is a reference for the working money, not a numismatic monograph.