User:Godot13/Sandbox/Taxonomic

A very rough draft. Have mercy, I only started reading about taxonomic hierarchies yesterday…

Feedback would be appreciated as to whether I am remotely on the right track...

Numismatic Taxonomy

An attempt to establish a taxonomic hierarchy within numismatics, using United States Banknotes as an exemplar. I have used the category headings found in biological taxonomy.

1) Kingdom

Numismatics can be divided into four very broad headings based on the material of construction: a) Paper, b) Coin, c) Other (inorganic), and d) Other (organic)

• Paper is any currency for which paper (or a predecessor or derivative) is used.
• Coin is any object made of metal, plastic, or other material falling under the [need cite] definition for coins.
• Other (inorganic) are objects assigned specific cultural value as a numismatic object (e.g., South Pacific island colored beads, stone money from Yap).
• Other (organic) are objects, as above, but made from organic material (e.g., Chinese tea bricks with overprint, sea shells with denominations printed on them, bundles of elephant hair).

2) [a] Superdivision/ [b]Division/ [c]Subdivision

Place of origin/issue can have as many categories as there are places that have issued currency on the planet. Place of origin can be divided into three levels, of which two would always contain data and the third when relevant.

• Superdivision is a continental level (7 choices).
• Division is the issuing country (or the country in which a local issuer is based) (approximately 200).
• Subdivision is for local or regionally issued currencies (a very large number of possibilities).

3) Class

The issuing authority of the currency has four principle categories to describe the backing (all need to be operationalized): 1) County, 2) Regional, 3) Local, and 4) Individual.

4) Legion

The historical time period during which the object was made. Examples can be found in this list of historical periods, and needs significant operational definitions.

5) [a]Order/ [b] Suborder

This is the numismatic category, variable based on Country (but corresponding to Legion above). Using North American paper currency as an example (putting aside time period): Continental, Colonial, Treasury Notes (War of 1812), Obsolete Banknotes, United States Banknotes (1861-), Confederate Banknotes (1861-1865), Military Payment Certificates. Each of these categories has published reference books on the period and scope assigning specific reference/index numbers to types, denominations, etc (see below for these).

• Suborder is only applicable to some of the categories and acts as an additional specifier for place of issue (or better point of entry to the public).

6) Family

Types of notes exist for most currencies, but not all. Within the numismatic category (order), the next division is by type. For U.B. Banknotes this would be: Demand Notes, Legal Tender, Silver Certificates, Federal Reserve Notes, etc.

7) Tribe

This may not apply to all currencies, but within U.S. Banknotes, all issues prior to 1928 are categorized as “Large size” and post 1928 as “Small size.” This is based on their relative size to one another and only exists for a subset of the family above.

8) [a] Genus/ [b] Series

Genus is the denomination of the note (or coin, or assigned value of other currencies).

• Series is coincidentally the series date printed on the note (or engraved in the die for the coin).

9) [a] Species/ [b] Subspecies/ [c] Variety/ [d] Form

This category covers the specific varieties which may or may not be present in paper currency or a coin.

• Species involves the signature combination of the authorizing officials for paper currency. Most published reference books provide specific numbers for every possible signature combination.

• Subspecies, variety, and form allow for the coding of species-specific data that are not common but do occur.

For example, one of the notes I posted in the VIC section would look like this:

Paper>North America>United States>Country>Post-war era (this grouping needs work)>U.S. Banknotes>Silver Certificate>Small>$5>1953>Fr.1655