User:Donald Trung/Letter to Dr. R. Allan Barker
On 21:23 29 D. 11 M. 2017 A. I sent this (electronic) letter to Dr. R. Allan Barker requesting him to upload images of cash 💰 coins to Wikimedia Commons, if you by any chance came across this page and own Vietnamese cash coins yourself then please go to Category:Coins of Vietnam and Category:Coins of French Indochina and look for the cash coins that are currently missing. If you own of those then feel free to upload a picture 📷 of it. 😉
“Dear Dr. Ba{r}ker,
Hello I am a fellow coin collector who shares an interest in the numismatic history of the Orient. To help make knowledge of the history of Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean Ryukyuan, and Japanese cash coins more freely available to everyone I started writing and expanding articles on Wikipedia that cover these subjects, after that I started uploading pictures of the cash coins I own to Wikimedia Commons. Most unfortunately I do not own as many cash coins as are featured in your wonderful books so I request that if you would find the time that you would upload pictures of your coins to Wikimedia Commons (and the images of rubbings if possible) so they can be freely shared with the world and used on Wikipedia to help illustrate these subjects.
Yours faithfully,
Donald Trung Quoc Don”
If you want more images to be added to Wikimedia Commons that can help illustrate things better than what we currently have then maybe you should e-mail 📧 people with similar requests too. 
Sent 📩 from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱. --Donald Trung (Talk 💬) ("The Chinese Coin Troll" 👿) (Articles 📚) 11:19, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Consulted methods of contact[edit]
- Sudokuone (a website maintained by Dr. R. Allan Barker)
- Cash coins of Korea (Also known as "The Asian Numismatic Museum", a website maintained by Dr. R. Allan Barker)
Second electronic-letter to Dr. R. Allan Barker[edit]
Today I had received Dr. Barker's first reply, unfortunately because of copyright © restrictions I am not permitted to share this one here, but as I am an avid believer that anything related to Wikimedia projects should be openly available on Wikimedia projects I shall copy paste my reply here, for context I will explain Dr. Barker's response in a manner that is permitted for this project. The response by Dr. Barker was very short, it was mostly just a request to have a few links to some {W}iki{pedia} articles so I provided them to him.
"Dear Dr. Barker,
No one has “their” wiki articles as Wikipedia is a collaborative medium, but here are a few links to some cash coins related articles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_cash
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyuan_mon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_mun
But images would have to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Commons is where most the images used on Wikipedia are stored, and these images can be used for educational purposes outside of Wikipedia as well, I will add these relevant links here.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Project_scope
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia
This also means that if someone were to reuse any of the images you upload to Wikimedia Commons that they would have to credit you by name (if you so choose to upload it with that license)
And these are a few categories for cash coins:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Coins_of_the_Joseon_Dynasty
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Coins_of_Vietnam
I would also advise you to add very detailed descriptions of the histories of each individual coin and its variants because a lot of that information might be too detailed for Wikipedia but is quite useful for Wikimedia Commons. I understand that you’re busy and if you ever decide to upload images of cash coins you can e-mail me back and I shall be here to guide you.
Yours faithfully,
Donald Trung Quoc Don
Sent from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱."
Well, because I don't want to end up in the spambox I rarely send links 🔗 in the first mail 📧 establishing contact, I explained to him that Wikipedia is a collaborative project and that no-one owns an article on Wikipedia. As Dr. Barker is very busy I do not expect him to be uploading any images here soon, and honestly I personally think of most cash coins-related articles as having been "completed" in mid-July 2017 (yes, by myself) and basically all I have been doing since is translation but images are very much needed (especially for Vietnamese/Annamese cash coins) so I will continue to browse eBay for "missing coins" but from what I can tell letting Dr. Barker share his collection would probably complete 95% of all "missing" cash coins on Wikimedia Commons. --Donald Trung (Talk 💬) ("The Chinese Coin Troll" 👿) (Articles 📚) 10:22, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
One final important link concerning Wikimedia Commons (third letter)[edit]
“Dear Dr. Barker,
I would like to share another link from Wikimedia Commons with you:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Ownership_of_pages_and_files
After uploading any photographs and/or rubbings of coins to Wikimedia Commons you can still be considered to be the copyright holder of these images and may request restrictions on their reuse to make sure that you and/or your work is always properly attributed (unless you would choose to release them into the public domain), you would still retain copyright to your images but uploading them there would allow others to use them in educational settings.
This is the UploadWizard:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard
Yours sincerely,
Donald Trung Quoc Don
Sent from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱.”
I sent this letter to make sure that Dr. R. Allan Barker knows that he wouldn't lose the copyright © to any of his images after uploading them to Wikimedia Commons, unfortunately many people don't want their images here as it would make them freely usable outside of this project.
Sent 📩 from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱. --Donald Trung (Talk 💬) ("The Chinese Coin Troll" 👿) (Articles 📚) 15:40, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Regarding imitations and forgeries (fourth letter)[edit]
So I had received a message from dear Dr. Barker concerning a possible venture in uploading images to Wikimedia Commons, by response is below:
“Dear Allan,
I fully agree with the fact that modern forgeries are in fact a problem and I wouldn't argue against the fact that if images of these coins were publicly available that it would make it easier for those in the business of producing fake coins to scam more easily, but this is equally true about the images from your wonderful book. Scammers can simply purchase a copy of your book (or worse, pirate a copy from an online wharez site) and use those images as the basis for their imitation, but the business of high quality fakes isn't as big as low quality forgeries and maybe it might sound naïve from my side but I would guess that if everyone would have access to images of genuine specimens that they could use them to avoid purchasing low-quality forgeries (this is especially true for novice collectors). I fully understand your reservations about releasing high quality images of these though, but the truth is that most new collectors will probably first look for information on wiki’s (this is true for myself as a decade ago my introduction to cash coins was via Wikipedia) and having an extensive library of images would show these new collectors not just the beauty of cash coins but their rich variety and history.
I personally have purchased forgeries in the past and when I upload(ed) images of those forgeries to Wikimedia Commons I had specifically noted how I could tell that they weren't genuine specimens to warn others from not making the mistakes I made. Also remember that (non-free) images are already available online that the bad guys have access to with a quick search.
My advice would be that if you were to consider uploading them that you would describe in detail how to spot the forgeries or if this would be giving the bad guys advice what to avoid I would advise only including the history of every individual coin. Well, if you ever want to share your collection on Wikimedia Commons I will be available here for you and you may ask me anything and I shall try my best to inform you appropriately, enjoy your work. ;-)
Yours faithfully,
Donald Trung Quoc Don
P.S.
You can also write essays on how to spot forgeries and what techniques the bad guys use on Wikimedia Commons to make that knowledge more openly available to others as well, it's sad that a hobby like coin-collecting is being perverted by forgers, I like holding a little piece of culture and history in my hands but the idea that it's possibly fake spoils the idea that you’re holding Ancient Vietnamese history.
Sent from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱.”
This was the reaction I wrote, I do have to admit that the possibility of forgers using Wikimedia Commons to get their models from is a possibility that I haven't considered prior. I shall be honest in that this is an issue I can't debunk because it's factual, however these images are largely already available on other websites.
Well, I can't say that Dr. Barker is my only option but as Charm.ru/Zeno.ru didn't work out as well as I had hoped (Vladimir Belyaev being mostly busy with maintaining his own website) I did find good news in that Dr. Barker saying that he’s already well-versed in Wiki’s as he said that he had his own wiki’s. I think 🤔 that the largest problem with the numismatic communities on Wikimedia projects is that many simply don’t consider donating images of their own collections to Wikimedia Commons, many articles are missing images of coins that go for less than $ 0,50 on eBay. Unfortunately Pinterest and Flickr are still better media for finding images than Wikimedia Commons.
Sent 📩 from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱. --Donald Trung (Talk 💬) ("The Chinese Coin Troll" 👿) (Articles 📚) 09:49, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Forgeries of Vietnamese cash coins (03 D. 04 M. 2018 A.)[edit]
"Dear Dr. R. Allan Barker,
I am interested to find out which other forgeries you have encountered since you have publicised your book and hope that you are willing to help expose forgers with me, on Wikimedia Commons I have created a category for imitations of Vietnamese coins (inspired by an earlier category I’ve created for imitations of Chinese coins), I hope that if you’re interested that you might wish to upload images of common (and perhaps rare) forgeries and how to tell that these are in fact imitations to Wikimedia Commons.
The category “Imitations of coins of Vietnam”:
Reading your book again and talking to a once avid cash coin collector and how he basically stopped collecting because there were too many fakes being sold at eBay which he found “a waste of time” I can’t help but think that the information on how to spot forgeries should be made more accessible, unfortunately though I have a lot of forgeries of Chinese cash coins I simply don't have any fake Vietnamese cash coins (or none that I know of).
By the way in the past you mentioned that you have plenty experience yourself with Wiki’s, may I know what type of wiki’s? Do you own your own wiki?
Yours faithfully,
Trung Quoc Don
Sent 📩 from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱.
P.S. (Post-Script)
I am looking for information on Korean and Vietnamese charms and though both images and information on Chinese charms are plentiful, thanks to information from websites like Gary Ashkenazy's Primaltrek / Primal Trek which I am planning to fully integrate into the “Yansheng Coin” Wikipedia article, and Vladimir Belyaev’s Charm.ru which may have closed down in 2003 but still continues to provide valuable information on Oriental charms. Unfortunately information regarding these same types of charms is quite rare to come by for Vietnamese numismatic charms and Korean numismatic charms, maybe the forgery industry is smaller there and maybe you would be willing to give me some information on these subjects or where I could find information on them. As Wikipedia will soon enter to be the third website where you can find everything on Chinese charms (other than images of unfortunately) it would be quite dissatisfying to have absolutely no information on charms from Viet Nam. During Vietnamese new year I always see a ton of Vietnamese cash coin-based “good luck” charms. I personally have no interest in collecting Asian numismatic charms, but am fascinated by how their history is intertwined with that of cash coins to the point that people would often confuse charms for cash coins and vice versa (recently I had come across a second-hand store in the Netherlands selling Thanh Dynasty era cash coins like the Can Long Thong Bao and Dao Quang Thong Bao cash coins as “Chinese lucky charms”).
P.P.S. (Post-Post-Script)
I had figured out almost a decade ago which of my Chinese cash coins were forgeries by the way they oxidate and eventually found out that some Wu Zhu and Ban Liang cash coins I had bought were (really obvious) fakes, I bought a Ban Liang from a seller in Shanghai and after a week or so it turned completely Brown, but most forgers today seem to have improved their methods of creating forgeries of cash coins to the point that it's very difficult to tell them apart, for this reason I am asking for your help on trying to keep the index of forgeries updated through Wikimedia Commons, hopefully you will also have forgeries of Chinese cash coins and Japanese cash coins."
--Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (Talk 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 15:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Missing link 🔗 (03 D. 04 M. 2018 A.)[edit]
"Dear Allan,
I forgot to include the link to the forgeries of VietnMwse coins on Wikimedia Commons, here is the category:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Imitations_of_coins_of_Vietnam
As you can see all media contributed in this category come from Sema’s Art-Hanoi website and unfortunately don’t contain any bronze or brass Vietnamese cash coins.
Yours faithfully,
Trung Quoc Don
Sent 📩 from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱."
--Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (Talk 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 15:42, 3 April 2018 (UTC)