Would you trade coins with a blind guy?

Let’s say you have a nice collection of swap coins. You are keeping them hoping you can make some good trades and get some great coins you always wanted to have. Somebody offers you a swap, when you find out he is blind. Will you get the same quality, or you will be sending you nice coins to get some half decent ones in return?

I understand your worry when you get into a swap like that. If I knew about other blind collectors I could tell you how it works in general, but I don’t. So, this is how a trade works with me.

When I trade with people, I generally tell them that I’m blind. Often times, a trade is a risk, you may not get what you bargain for. But I don’t want you feel that you are at a disavvantage at any point. I have to admit, there was a time when people never knew I was blind. I was running my business and even my clients had no clue. Why? Because it wasn’t important. If I ever needed to look at something, I had enough staff to give me advice on the visual aspects. I wanted to prove to myself that I can survive as a blind person just as well as anybody else. I never lied about being blind, but never advertised it, either. Today, I don’t care. I’m confident that I will do my best, and I don’t have to pretend to be what I am not.

So, when you offer a coin swap, in my next email, I will explain it to you that I am blind, and I don’t exactly know what the quality of the coins is that you are getting. Then I offer that you can do a couple of things to make the swap fair.

If the value of the coins is minimal, for example, you want to have a series of Hungarian coins which is my pocket change from my last trip, the value of the whole collection is less than two Dollars. I will certainly not ask for more valuable coins in return. Chances are that we will exchange a pile of general circulation coins, probably of similar quality.

If you are looking for higher quality coins from the current circulation, I can scan the coins for you. This way you exactly know what you are getting, and you can help me find coins from your collection which are of similar value.

Another option is that I can send you the coins first, tell you what I would like to get in exchange, and you can send me as many as you think my sent coins are worth.

It maybe that sometimes I lose on the trade sometimes, but it really doesn’t bother me. The types of coins I’m trading are mostly pocket change. I may loose a Dollar worth of value, but gain a friend on the long run.

When it comes to more valuable coins that’s another story, I will certainly provide you with images or sufficient description to make the trade worthwhile for both of us.