New materials

Hello

The metals used for Roman provincial coins and some late Greek coins are usually described as “AE” or “Æ”.

“Æ” means “an uncertain copper-based alloy" but not necessarily bronze. It could be leaded copper, bronze, brass, leaded bronze, almost pure copper, or any other random base metal alloy. This difference exists in RPC for example:

Æ → (?) no equivalent in Numista

Brass → brass in Numista 

Bronze → bronze in Numista

Copper → copper in Numista 

Copper + lead → leaded copper in Numista 

Leaded bronze → (?) no equivalent in Numista

For Æ, could there be a new material, “copper alloy” or “base metal”? Otherwise, what would you suggest to use?

And for Leaded bronze, I just did this. But since there is already  “leaded copper”, should there be a “leaded bronze” (Copper + 5-30% Tin + <10% Lead) added too?

Thank you

Hello,

I just added “leaded bronze”.

I'm not sure about Æ. One option would be to add a new material “uncertain copper-based alloy” (not just “copper alloy” as we don't want people to select this option for a known copper alloy).

But I'm reluctant about adding “uncertain” options in the list of materials. The coin actually has a certain alloy; it's uncertain only as long as we didn't study it.

The other option would be to set “unknown” as material (which sounds correct since we don't know the exact alloy) and specify “copper alloy” as additional details. Using the additional details is not an ideal option either, as it would require translation in other languages.

What do you think?

Aren't the vast majority out of bronze or copper. If nobody knows the material it has to stay blank, if you know they are copper or bronze choose this. You can still write ‘uncertain alloy’ or similar in the additional-information-field of the material if that's necessary.

Thank you!

I tried “unknown” with additional details here:

N#363395

Composition  (copper alloy)

The brackets look a bit odd to me.

Xavier

One option would be to add a new material “uncertain copper-based alloy” (not just “copper alloy” as we don't want people to select this option for a known copper alloy).

I think this would be similar to steel vs. stainless steel, but I get the point.  I think “uncertain copper-based alloy” would look better than “(copper alloy)”.