Notes on a Birthday

Last year I posted my thoughts when this blog turned two. Similarly, here are my thoughts on the exact day when the blog is turning three.

The post last year definitely helped me to evaluate where I was with the blog and where I wanted to take it in the future. Probably the two keywords last year were mainstream and numismatics.

Mainstream, because on this blog, or on social media, I started exploring much more about coin collecting in general without any aspect of being blind. The reason is because I think I’m primarily a coin collector, and second, I am a coin collector who is blind. There is only so much to write about blindness and collecting, and though I haven’t explored all the topics, I wanted to exchange ideas with others about collecting in general. Having said that, this is still going to remain the blind coin collector blog, I will continue focus on visual impairment, blindness related issues and projects, but I hope to write about many other things.

Numismatics, because I would like to get more into collecting on the academic level, and I feel that my interest is much more than “just” collecting. I read many more numismatic publications, participate in discussions, and as of this year, I became the newsletter editor of the World Internet Numismatic Society.

This blog is only a communication outlet for my collecting and numismatic interest, and though I wrote about the most important events, I think it is because of this blog that I have participated in many activities over the last year. A year ago I said that I only wish I spent more time writing, sharing and joining online discussions. Over the last year, it definitely happened, not necessarily in the form I originally envisioned it, but I think it is only for the better.

But let’s see what all happened over the last year. Probably the biggest highlight was when I attended the World’s Fair of Money in Chicago. It really helped me to better understand collecting in the United States, and I made a few contacts as well. Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend this year.

Last summer I spent quite a bit of time understanding how I would be able to take pictures of my coins, with more or less success. I didn’t become a photographer, but it was an interesting experience, and I still have my photo station set up, though I have to admit I don’t use it too much. I wrote about it in taking coin photos and in taking pictures in practice. These posts resulted into a number of interesting conversations, and quite a bit of reading about photography.

The most time consuming project has been the coin description project for the blind, which has evolved into much more. Now it is a general description project, which includes coins as well. The project is still on-going, but I had such a hard time finding volunteers. Some people sent me descriptions, but for the most part I ended up paying for it, but I exhausted the budget I had for it. I was thinking about a fundraising campaign, the problem is that I still don’t have enough descriptions and not enough people who would spread the word about such a fundraising, so I’m still working on it. If you are reading this and would like to volunteer to describe coins, please contact me.

I also wrote a couple of book reviews, the most interesting one was an interview with Michael van den Heuvel who wrote a book about square coins

During the Christmas break, we visited the Money Museum with my daughter, which resulted into a special invitation for bloggers this year.

A few weeks ago I spent some time in Hungary, and though I didn’t do as much collecting as I originally wanted to, I visited the Hungarian Numismatic Society, and wrote more about collecting in Hungary.

Over the last year, I joined a number of clubs, such as the ANA, the International Primitive Money Society, and just today, The Elongated Coin Club with my daughter. I would like to join a few more. In a way I am starting to feel that I’m just collecting club memberships, WINS alone gives me enough things to do, but I had different reasons for joining each club, sometimes only to receive their publications. At this point, I don’t have enough time to be an active member in each one of them.

And what’s next? I would like to continue being more active in numismatics through the clubs I joined and on online forums. I have many ideas to write about, I’m collecting my ideas in a file, and it is definitely more than what I’ll be able to cover over the next year, not to mention the many new ideas I constantly tend to come up with. So, I hope to publish a little more on the blog. I also became more active on social media, first on Facebook, but I am having some issues with it, I found Twitter much more efficient for this purpose. I also started a newsletter that you can sign up for on the left side of each page, but I’m not sure where I’m going to take that. For now, it is an alternative for promoting my posts on social media. The one thing I would like to start doing more actively is reading publications in other languages. There are at least four languages besides English that I can read in, the problem is that I don’t have a numismatic vocabulary, maybe to some extent in Hungarian, but most of what I know I learned in English, so it will take a little studying. The first step is that I’m reading the history of coins in Portugal, in Portuguese. Hopefully by the time I finish the book I will at least be able to converse about at least the basics of coin collecting.