The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 38, September 22, 2002, Article 14

KRAUSE DESIGNATIONS

  Jan Lingen of the Netherlands responded to Kavan
  Ratnatunga's questions about essais and Krause not having
  definitions for words used in their catalogs:

  "Essai"  is French for pattern or trial
  "Prova" is Italian and has the same meaning
  To complete it further in German it is "Probe"; in
  Spanish "prueba"  In French sometimes also "preuve"
  is used. Alternative expressions in Italian are also
  "saggio" or "disegno"

  To me, "off-metal strikes" are coins in a different metal
  than the official circulation coin.  Patterns and trials could
  be in different metals, mostly they are so that they can't
  be mistaken from the circulation coins.

  Krause has to depend on many people from different
  countries. For the Dutch Encyclopedia of coins and paper
  money, we made a list of Numismatic terms in Dutch,
  English, German, French, Italian & Spanish.  I asked
  acquaintances from these countries to go through this list
  and you may be surprised that different people give
  different expressions for the same term. Even in certain
  numismatic terms in different languages it is not
  "black/white" either.   So I am not surprised that such
  things do appear in Krause."

  Howard A. Daniel III adds:  "Krause cannot put everything
  in its catalogs that are requested and/or needed by numismatists
  and others because the volumes would be twice their current
  sizes and priced too high for most collectors to purchase and/
  or handle.  So they have produced some specialty books, to
  include a numismatic dictionary.

  I am on the road again as I write this, but my memory of the
  French Southeast Asian pieces has essai as an equivalent to
  proof in the U.S.  And the French used to make 1004 of a
  coin in Essai (normal coin thickness in the original metal) and
  104 Essai Piefort (double thickness in the original metal).

  I do not know if those numbers are continued today in the
  modern issues, and I do not know if essai has been
  expanded into including many modern strikes."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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