IMO,
Numista number, as it is, is not enough, for it links to a coin, but not to any variety of it.
Like here:
N#20604
Maybe numista should be, as discussed, something like #####A.X, where # is the current number, A a letter(s) to assign a variety, year, etc… and X a number, if needed, for any extra cataloging requirement.
I think that that´s interesting, lets say, in the scenario where we have ####A.1 and ####A.2, but need to add a variety between them. That could be ####A.1, ####A.11, ####A.2, so no number would have to change.
So, in the case of the chinese coin above, they would be:
20604.AA.1
20604.AA.2
20604.AB.1
20604.AB.2
20604.AB.3
20604.AC.1
20604.AC.2
20604.AC.3
20604.AC.4
20604.AC.5
20604.AC.6
I like to mix letters and numbers because when a letter changes, we can spot the change faster, without having to read it all.
Here in Brazil for example, Bentes catalogue works with ###.X, where # is the coin number and X (starting from 01) is the counting digits for the year, so a coin minted from 90-98 would be ###.01 - ###.08, so every single entry has it´s own particular number.
Km, for me, has the problem of repeating itself, meaning, all countries have a Km#1,2,3,etc… coin, a problem solved by numista number.
