Accessible currency in 2019

It seems that we have heard more about accessible currency this year than in any year before. If we read the news carefully, there is announcement almost every month somewhere about making currency more accessible, or maintaining the commitment. I will give a brief overview of what happened this year. As I explained in an earlier post, finding this type of information is not always obvious, and it is possible I missed a few items. If you are aware of any, please leave a comment at the bottom and I will add it.

A big thank you to my friend Quentin Christensen for helping me verifying the new features from pictures on the internet and in catalogs.

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Finding news about accessible currency

It takes dedication and creativity to find out about the accessibility features of newly released currency. This information is not popular enough to have its own category, or even its own headline. I thought I would share my challenges about finding out what the press releases and news bites really mean.
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The challenges of collecting paper money

Originally the title of this post was going to be why I am not collecting paper currency. But over the months as I was putting my thoughts together (AKA procrastinating) to write this post, I had to admit that I do have a bank note collection, and for that matter, I do collect accessible currency after all, but more about that at the end. In this post, I will write about the challenges of collecting paper currency and about what I do instead, for the most part.
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Coin petting zoo at the Lawrence University

I read an article in the October 27, 2019 E-Sylum about an annual coin petting zoo organized by the Lawrence University classics department and the Wriston Art Center Galleries in Appleton, Wisconsin. The idea fascinated me, because it was a hands-on experience with coins, and had absolutely nothing to do with blind people. When I talk to coin collectors, I often encourage them to experience coins by touch when it is possible. Traditionally we can see coins in holders or behind glass, but there is still many to be handled especially when using a proper protection of objects.

After reading about the coin petting zoo, I was curious how it came about, and I wanted to see what we can learn from this experience either for collectors in general, or if there is something that can be adopted for blind people to learn about numismatics. I contacted Adriana Brook, a professor of classics, from Lawrence University’s classic department with my questions. She responded promptly and suggested that I also contact Beth Zinsli who is the curator of this collection.

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Coin identifier apps

When it comes to coin identifier apps, it really depends on what you want to use it for. In this post, I will give you an overview of what is out there in terms of coin identifier apps, and coin identification solutions and related research.

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An excellent online coin dealer

Recently I’ve been buying coins from a wonderful coin dealer online. I like his services so much, I wanted to share it with you. Originally he was recommended by my collector friend, Ole Sjoelund. His name is Gundars Sokolovskis, and he is from Latvia.

Gundars sells mostly 20th and 21st century circulation coins, though he also has some commemoratives. At the time of this writing he has about 8000 different kinds of coins, and all are displayed on his web site.

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Visiting the Hungarian National Museum’s numismatic collection

Another numismatic bucket list was checked off when we visited the Hungarian National Museum’s numismatic collection. This time, again, we traveled with the family. I kept putting it off, as I was traveling to Hungary quite often and I thought I’ll always have time for it. I wish I have started with this museum.

Before the trip, I contacted Dr. Csaba Toth, the director of the coin collection to ask him to provide us with a hands-on introduction of the collection. He immediately got back to me, and even though it was at a short notice, offered us a flexible schedule to visit the museum.

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Accessing protected DAISY documents on Archive.org

The Internet Archive, Archive.org contains almost two million books which are protected, but are freely available for people with print disabilities. Most of these protected books are not available electronically from other places. However, accessing these materials is not immediately obvious. In this post I will describe the problem, and how to get around it.

Though this blog is about coin collecting, this is a topic which can be useful for all people with print disabilities, such as blind, visually impaired or dyslexic. Therefore, I will talk about the issue in general, and at the end I will explain how these protected materials relate to numismatics in general. For the time being, let me just say that it has opened a new world in numismatic research.

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