"Your request for numismatic definitions in the July E-Sylum deserves comment.

This need has existed since 1811. The first numismatic dictionary was published in Germany that year by author Carl Christian Schmieder. (Clain-Stefanelli: 286) Since then 45 numismatic dictionaries and encyclopedias have been published worldwide: 18 in German, 12 in English, 3 in Italian, 2 in Spanish, 2 in Japanese, 2 in Ukrainian, 1 each in Danish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Polish, Dutch and Latin.

Why is it you are still asking for "authoritative" definitions? Could it be you are not satisfied with any existing definitions? I have made a study of these 45 books (and Glossaries in other numismatic works). Perhaps this could be the subject for an Asylum article.

The three definitions you cited are "quickie" definitions not necessarily intended for the serious numismatist. Coin World omits the concept of denomination each coin must have, for example.

The answer to the origin of these definitions goes back to an ANA committee in the sixties whose membership changed often (I served on it the year Joseph Segel was lobbying for an acceptable definition of "medal"). I believe the final chairperson was Virginia Culver and the report was published 1968 (C-S 255). It was abstracted by Howard Linecar in the Spink reprint of Albert R. Frey's 1917 dictionary in 1973 (and appended in blue pages).

Like every committee effort, however, it's a horse with multiple humps."