Notes on the 4th Birthday

I can’t believe this blog has existed for 4 years already. With many ideas, expectations, unfulfilled desires, and many many more unexpected surprises. One thing for sure, as I plot the next year, things happen which make it different from what I have in mind. Again, during the last year, for the better.

But before I compare what I wrote last year with what I really did, let me excuse myself. I did not fulfill most of my plans. But here is why.

At work, last August, I have received a new assignment. I have to travel around our offices, and provide education to people. One measure of my success, is the number of people I reach. Practically, it is an assignment which I always thought I would do if money wasn’t an object. What I want to do is to travel and to make a difference. Well, it came in the same package, and I’m being paid to do it. So much about future plans and ideas, this was a dream coming true, and instead of stressing about fulfilling promises, it was time to take advantage of my new assignment.

So, a sudden change of plans, I wanted to take advantage of travel to include my hobby. The solution was obvious: I tried to visit as many money museums, or coin collections as possible, or just participate in numismatic activities during my trips. I already wrote about the Numismatourist, who visits money museums, but I wrote a new piece about him and his book, and the inspiration I got from it. To be honest, I would have done the same without his book, but the book was a huge help to quickly figure out what to find in the different cities. It happened so that I got to meet Howard Berlin, the Numismatourist, this time in Cleveland.

I made one promise to myself which I was able to keep so far: on each trip, I would do at least one cultural or social thing. That is, when there is enough time during the trip, staying in the hotel is not an option. Aside from one trip, I did not extend my stay anywhere, the only exception was when I stayed with my parents when I worked in Hungary and took a few days off. But during most business trips, there is enough time to get work done and get to know the place I visit. There were a few exceptions when it was just an in and out, for example in Atlanta, where I would like to do a few things one day when time permits.

You can always find my latest travel related posts here.

So, let’s see the years in numbers. I have worked in 7 countries, visiting 14 cities, a few of them several times. I have visited 6 museums, and paid with six currencies. There is something to having different coins in my pocket making the distinct sound of a country’s currency. I have not collected many coins from circulation, as I already had many of them, but I was able to find a few things in each country, plus, I brought home many coins from Hungary which I had as a child.

I managed to keep one of my goals though, I wanted to learn enough in other languages to read numismatic information. I started the year to read a Portuguese book, but later it turned into more of a practical thing, as I was traveling, I had to use the languages I knew to obtain information, or to talk about numismatics. I managed to incorporate English, Hungarian, German, Spanish and Portuguese into expanding my knowlege about numismatics. It was more than what I have envisioned originally.

My other goal last year was to be more active in clubs and forums. While I did very poorly with it, I consider it a great achievement that I met with two people for the first time I got to know through this blog and numismatics. Today, I would call them friends. I met one of them in DC when we visited the Smythsonian, and the other in California when life brought us together to the same conference.

What I didn’t do at all was writing all the blog posts I wanted to. I still collect ideas, and I still would like to talk about those, but it made more sense to write about my travels instead. Hopefully, I will get to more in the next year.

As always, plans, regarding this blog don’t turn out the way as intended, but it is always for the better. My goal for the next year, is to continue visit museums, exhibits, clubs and events related to numismatics as long as I have my current work assignment. I will try to be more active on the blog and write about other things. Also, I plan to spend more time on collecting, as it got neglected over the last year. I think I have cataloged about 200 coins, mostly the ones I brought back from my trips, which is only five percent of my collection. If I consider that I’m actively collecting and cataloging for ten years, it is not much. But I certainly have learned a lot over the last year, which directly impacted my collection, and my interests. Now I would collect differently, and my interests are more refined.

So, hopefully, onto another great year.