Country flags

Many our users suggest newer flags for omitted countries in our CollectionStudio database. We always try to add them in new release. But it takes some time. Therefore our users have suggested to add possibility to manage country flags within CollectionStudio without building of the new version.

This is rather good suggestion (and we will implemented this one day); But we think that CS should have more setup for work with collectibles comparing to the work with information properties of collectible parameters. Yes, it is more convenient to have a list of countries with flags, the view is more nice-looking, but these flags add no additional information by itself.

When CollectionStudio starts, we want that our users will concentrate on the list of their collectibles or on its sampling. They need lots of fetch tools, special sort procedures, export and import, synchronization, check lists, light boxes, grouping and so on. This is a aim of each CS versions during all years that CS is available online.

Hmm, what we are talking about?... country flags! Here they are:

A pie chart of all the colours used in all of the world's sovereign-state flags.

Using a list of countries generated by The World Factbook database, flags of countries fetched from Wikipedia (as of 26th May 2007) are analysed by a custom made python script to calculate the proportions of colours on each of them. That is then translated on to a piechart using another python script. The proportions of colours on all unique flags are used to finally generate a piechart of proportions of colours for all the flags combined.

Posted by serge, Ottobre 28, 2009. Post has 0 comments.
country CS flag

5 years cake

Our long celebration of the 5 years that Collection Studio is online comes to the end. For this special event we had a holiday cake in our small development team:

After the "cut" you will see a small cake animation (700k), created by our photoshop guru and designer Nadine...

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Posted by serge, Ottobre 27, 2009. Post has 2 comments.
5 years cake

ABN Amro seizes Dirk Scheringa museum’s collection

The DSB bank owner had used his museum’s art collection as security for a loan of EUR 32 million.

Spanbroek – Staff of the Scheringa Museum of Realist Art were shocked Tuesday evening as the museum’s permanent collection was seized by ABN Amro bank in lieu of DSB bank boss Dirk Scheringa’s unpaid loan.

Jan van Tongeren (1897-1991)

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Posted by serge, Ottobre 22, 2009. Post has 0 comments.
art bank collection DSB museum painting Scheringa

Corrected banknotes

Sometimes the design of banknotes issued is changed by governments and new signs, inscriptions, holes, stamps are appeared on its. When new inscription is printed on the banknote it is called overprint. Overprints are widely used all over the world. For example, in 1985, after denomination Argentinian peso got new name - austral. Consequently a huge amount of banknotes issued in old units were put in circulation with overprints indicating new face value in austral and new name.

Overprinted Argentinean banknote

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Posted by serge, Ottobre 21, 2009. Post has 3 comments.
banknote Brazil corrected banknote denomination Iran Russia Transdniestria

Nine-year-old coin designer

Florence Jackson (9 year old girl, Bristol) has become the first child to design a British coin: her drawing of the high jump, marking the 2012 Olympic Games in London, was chosen as the winning entry out of 17,000 in a Blue Peter competition (a long-running BBC television program for children).

Olympic gold medal winner, Denise Lewis, and her high-jump design makes history on the reverse of this new 50p coin, which also features the 2012 logo!

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Posted by serge, Ottobre 17, 2009. Post has 0 comments.
Bristol coin designer Royal Mint United Kingdom

Wish tree

Some weeks ago I thought about how we can use coins in other non usual purpose than just to buy something or just store it in superb album. And here goes the answer: we can make a wish! To make this we should just find a good tree and drive a coin through the bark or into the wood:

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Posted by serge, Ottobre 13, 2009. Post has 1 comments.
coins englang funny ireland scotland tree Wish tree wishes

Laser-etched stacks of dollar bills

We are pleased to present "Always Almost There" a solo exhibition (1st October 2009 - 30th October 2009; 8 Greek Street, Soho, London W1D 4DG) of all new works by Scott Campbell. Born and raised in rural Louisiana Scott's work is deeply rooted in the history of tattooing, it is his first major exhibition in Europe and his debut show in London.

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Posted by serge, Ottobre 11, 2009. Post has 0 comments.
bills dollar exhibition London show

Hobby of the king George V

George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 1910 through World War I (1914–1918) until his death in 1936.

King George V. Portrait

George V who ruled the British Empire more than 25 years, made philately by one of the most popular hobbies in the Great Britain. He took a great interest in a collecting of stamps when he was only 13 years old. He did his first purchases at Pembertone and Charles Phillips. By 1890 George had already have enough serious collection. George's father , Edward, helped the son with a rare material for the collection which usual philatelists had no possibility to get. George was the first who received angular quartblocks of all stamps which were issuing in British Empire. Also his father bought the collection of stamps of his brother Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and gave it to his son.

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Posted by serge, Ottobre 8, 2009. Post has 0 comments.
albums British collection collector George V hobby king stamp

5 years online

Today, we celebrate 5 online years of the Collection Studio. In 2004, 17 September, the first public version of the CollectionStudio 1.27 was uploaded on the www.collectionstudio.com web-site. Yes, it was five years ago:

At first steps the program was written as a special tool for amateur banknote and coins collectors and now according to lot of changes, users’ suggestions from the entire World, new features and tools, according to support additional collectibles, including custom collectible, CS became very powerful software. It became a Studio, not a regular software or second-rate application.

All this essential improvements were reached only using your support, my dear users. And it was very important for us, to hear from you every your opinion and suggestions. Therefore from today and all next 30 days, we will provide a special offer for every new customer of our collectors’ software. Just use the following coupon code: SAND-68J8.

Let’s celebrate this great day together!

Posted by serge, Settembre 17, 2009. Post has 0 comments.
5 years offer release

Moneygami

Moneygami is origami made from currency available in everyone’s purse. By itself, origami is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding. The word, literally meaning to fold (oru) paper (kami), therefore correct name of this human art, judging by the translation of origami, should be called orimoney. The goal of this art is to create a representation of an object using geometric folds and crease patterns preferably without gluing or cutting the paper, and using only one piece of paper.

(10 Rupees, India, 2006)

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Posted by serge, Settembre 15, 2009. Post has 2 comments.
banknote bill Moneygami origami paper money