Collecting in Mexico, braille coins and currencies

It’s been my dream to go to Mexico for almost 20 years. I went to California to a conference almost every year, and for some reason I was never able to go over to Mexico. Either no time, no money, or both.

Last year I had a chance to spend a few days in Guadalajara, and I have to say I fell in love with the country. I can’t explain this. I have enjoyed many countries, but I never thought I fell in love with one. I just enjoyed the environment, the food, the weather and the relaxed people. Of course, I think I have seen the best of Mexico.

Last time I was there, I thought I’d never be back, because I did all the work I could think of. Fortunately, I was invited back, this time for an entire week.

At this point I have all the coins from circulation, though I would like to get some paper currency because the ones I had from last year are such bad quality that the best thing I can do with them is to spend it.

The first night I got some Mexican Pesos, and got some change to have some coins in my pocket.

The second day I went to the public library to get info about three things:

• Why did Mexico have braille on older coins?
• What do they do to recognize new bills?
• And any info about legislation for people with disabilities.

I got nothing done. But at least they took my info and offered to get back to me. The library has a section for blind people, but it is only opened until 3 pm, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to go back.

The following day I went to a coin store. There are several numismatic stores, I didn’t have time to visit all of them, so I just picked one from Google maps randomly. They had some bad ratings, but not too many reviews, so it could be anything.

When I got to the address, it was a mall, so I had to get directions from the security guard.

The owner, Bob Briggs greeted me. During our conversation I found out that he moved from the US some 40 years ago. We had a nice chat, he was really involved with trying to find me what I needed, even though I didn’t look like the client with a deep pocket. I picked up the braille coin series which was still missing from my collection.

Mexico has some of those interesting braille coins where the braille shows the coin value, but these dots are so small that it is almost impossible to feel them.

As I was preparing for the trip, I read that a new 20 Peso coin and a 500 Peso note is coming out soon, the note will have braille on it. I started to read more about currency in Mexico, and I found out that since the note sizes are different, blind people use a card to measure the notes against so they know which is which. There is something similar in India and in Romania that I am aware of. In Mexico it is called the Identificador de billetes. Unfortunately I couldn’t figure out where to get it from. My understanding is that the National Bank distributes it, but this may not be accurate information.

So, another item is crossed out on the bucket list. I’m not going to list the rest here, but Mexico was on it, and I am glad I was able to be there twice recently. I’d certainly go back again, there is so much more there I didn’t have time for. But the next trip is to India.