Coin Compendium testing begins!

[badon]

Coin Compendium testing has begun! Several CCF members have been invited and given access to the Coin Compendium for a long time now, but they were only able to watch me work on it, since it wasn't functional enough for anyone to try using it. I had a successful test today with DiggingNorway in setting up some info for the Chinese historical figures series, and it went much better than I thought it would. Namely, nothing exploded :)

The people who have been invited to test the Coin Compendium were selected for specific reasons. For example, DiggingNorway is both somewhat new to modern Chinese coins, and actively doing cutting-edge research on the historical figures series. That's a rare combination that will give me a chance to answer questions that someone more expert wouldn't need to ask, and someone less expert wouldn't know how to ask.

So, everyone chosen for this testing has a different monkey-wrench they can throw into the system, to make sure that when it is unveiled for public beta testing, it will be reasonably functional and trouble-free, even though it probably won't yet be 100% fully operational at that time.

For the people invited to see the Coin Compendium, they had to agree to not reveal any detailed information about the things they would be seeing while I was working on it. However, it is kind of a sophisticated system, and since more and more people are being invited to try it out, I'm spending a bit more time than I would like to on privately explaining how it works, and answering questions that come up. Since the tests today went so well, I think the CC may be ready to produce useful research and market information once enough data has been entered, if I ramp up the testing.

This means that it won't be much longer before everyone will get a chance to see it, and all the hush-hush secrets will be out! As a wild guess, I'd say it might be around a month before it gets shown publicly, but all my wild guesses about that have been totally wrong so far :)

For now, I'm relaxing my request that people with access not talk about the Coin Compendium publicly, so they will be able to talk to each other and to me all at once, in my favorite forum. You may talk about anything you need to, in order to help yourself and each other figure out how the system works, and what it can do for you. Of course, the discussion is public, and anyone else can join in too.

So, let the mayhem begin, and lets see if we can break something, and maybe discover something new!

[Panda Halves]

Let the mayhem ensue indeed.
The first rule of the Coin Compendium is that you do not talk about the Coin Compendium...

[badon]

You, Panda Halves, are the registry set god. You were selected to poke holes in the inventory system, but since it hasn't been created yet, you will just have to bask in the glory of your incredible NGC registry set :)

[dobedo]

Oh, I cannot wait to break this system, sort of like breaking coins out of slabs.

[badon]

But hopefully much harder to do, if I did my part right :)

[wyldkatt]

Hey there badon!

Glad you're finally rolling the CC out, and about.

Not having any "on hands" with the CC, is provoking my curiosity about the 'core database'.

How would you rate the Coin Compendium's database, say,
with PandaAnalytics.com's 'database',?
Better?, worse?, equal?

I've mentioned this site in the past, here, and elsewhere.
And I've done so, because, I hadn't found anything besides Peter's works,
and some other "price guides", and a couple of blogs.

This site tries to give the trends for Modern Chinese Coinage.
Not trying to wrestle with "iffy" mintage numbers, or varieties.
Hopefully maybe they could give a 1st time visitor, a one time shot,
at a search for 1 particular coin.

Remember, all these sales records are for slabbed coins.
No OMP, or "raw" coins.

Anyway badon, how's the CC's database rate with PandaAnalytics.com??

I use multiple sources for doing a number of projects.
So I'm hoping I'll be able to use the CC to compliment the rest.

Thanks badon.
And again, congrats.

Best,
~wyldkatt~

[badon]

I actually haven't taken a close look at PandaAnalytics.com yet. Just a cursory glance at it shows a lot of useful information. I think the Coin Compendium is quite different in most aspects, but it also focuses on graded coins like PandaAnalytics does. The CC has some limited capability to track information about ungraded coins, and the more I explore it, the more it seems like it will be able to do things that I hadn't planned on.

The Coin Compendium is very, very powerful. I don't know all the things that it will be able to do, and I'm learning about it myself as I play with it. As far as collecting data, I doubt anything else can do nearly as much as the CC. I have no doubt the CC will revolutionize many aspects of numismatics. The best part is, as it stands at the moment, the data is going to be freely available for use by anybody for anything.

I have received lots of suggestions that I make some or all parts of it a pay service, but I don't have any plans for that. The real value that others can take from the CC is their analysis and interpretations of the data, by using the CC as a research tool. For collecting and aggregating pure data, nothing else that has ever existed can come close. It'll make most other info references obsolete within a couple of years of opening it up, as a guess. Those info references will probably evolve into "analytics" of the Coin Compendium data, instead of trying to keep track of all the data themselves.

The Coin Compendium will not try to do everything. It won't be a marketplace (any more than this forum is), and it won't be able to tell you what you should invest in. It will take a real person to interpret the data and draw conclusions. My hope is that it will make people better at what they do best, and eliminate their need to do tedious data-collection things that the CC is doing for them.

If the Coin Compendium is a threat to the PandaAnalytics model (I think it is), you should discuss with me ways that PandaAnalytics can do things that the Coin Compendium won't be doing, so you'll be ready in advance when it opens up. Even though the CC will make many things obsolete, I do not want to leave a wasteland in its wake. My goal is to make the market better, not empty.

I think the PandaAnalytics name is on the right track, since the Coin Compendium won't be doing "analytics" per se.

[badon]

Actually, the images ARE already automatically resized. The differences you see in CCT203 is because the photos are from different distances from the coin. I saw the images as soon as you uploaded them, and I added a link to the image form that takes you to pixlr, where you can crop your images:

http://pixlr.com/

It's possible to add cropping, rotation, and other features to the Coin Compendium, but I've spent most of my time available on the image annotation features, which are fantastic. However, myself or someone else can easily crop those photos for you on CCT203, so you don't need to worry about it. Just upload the photos, and it'll get done eventually, one way or another!

[badon]

I just fixed the images for you. A trick is if you use "Upload file" (not "Upload image") on the left sidebar, and then upload a file with the same name, it creates another "version" of that image so you don't have to redo any of the work you've done. It just automatically updates everything to use the new image you uploaded. The old version is still on the original page too, in case we want to use it for something.

[dobedo]

1. So what happened to the request to provide automated translation from English to German and Chinese?

2. Mixed set of raw coins in "original box" - Original box for which ones of this mixed set of coins?

3. Unless raw coins or set of them can be uniquely identified, is it a good idea to include them at this early development stage?

4. Is it time yet to automatically download some real NGC data (#, grade, photo) on subset/s of coin types you set up so some analysis tools may be tested out?

[SANDAC]

badon,  Is there a way to link to NGC's high resolution photo archive?  If so, how do we deal with the copyright issue?

[badon]

badon,  Is there a way to link to NGC's high resolution photo archive?  If so, how do we deal with the copyright issue?

Yes, and it is already done for you AUTOMATICALLY! Yes, it is 100% automatic! I'm very proud that it's so easy to use. Take a look at CC10. You will see on the right the NGC certification number. The little note "1" takes you to the bottom of the page in the "Notes" section. There, you will find the reference for the NGC certification number that contains a link that takes you directly to NGC's verification page, where you can see their photos on their site. No copyright issues!

This is why I love NGC. The Coin Compendium is better because NGC is better. But, there are similar functions for PCGS that allow you to verify the certification. But, PCGS doesn't have photos yet. If they add them later, then the links will work the same way.

Another tip:

At the top of a specimen page, you will see the "certification number navigator". On the CC10 page, it looks like this (it will change when you start using it!):

? ← 006 ‒ 007 - 008 → ?

007 is the item number portion of the specimen's NGC certification number:

3545670-007

The question mark links will take you DIRECTLY to NGC's verification page for certification number 3545670-006 and 3545670-008, where you can check to see what they are, and if they exist. If they exist, you can click them to be taken to the form with all all fields automatically filled out for you, using the same info that's on the page CC10 page for NGC cert# 3545670-007.

The reason why that is so amazing is because if you are a dealer, and you send in 1000 kublai khan coins, you can just keep clicking those red links to enter in all 1000 specimens into the coin compendium within a very short time. All you would have to change is the grade they received!

Of course, it still works if the next coin is a different type, like a panda. Then you have to change the type number also, and any other info that needs to be changed. It might be easier to start from the correct type page to have all info filled out for you automatically.

And then just repeat the process.

This way, it is easy for thousands of coins to be entered into the system each day. The help page doesn't have this info yet, because I was waiting for someone to ask :)

[SANDAC]

Yes, and it is already done for you AUTOMATICALLY! Yes, it is 100% automatic!

Wow, very cool.  I entered one (two actually) for NGC 3497991-056.  CC15 is a duplicate of CC14.  Could you remove it for me.  Thanks.

[badon]

I deleted the duplicate, thanks for telling me about it. As you noticed, it says "DUPLICATE" if a duplicate is entered. The sightings system isn't as good about catching duplicates though, but I think they should be easy to spot manually when they appear. I am working on some possible solutions to ensure there are fewer sighting duplicates (before they happen).

[DiggingNorway]

"2. Mixed set of raw coins in "original box" - Original box for which ones of this mixed set of coins?"

dobedo; I just uploaded the photo to test the uploading function.... it has no particular information value... we are still in very early stages and to learn the different functions have been my priority... As I only have RAW coins for the time being I will wait to upload more specimens until I get them graded...

but right I am just trying to get to know the CC's funcytions and play around in there