For the seventh birthday

Not surprisingly this year was rather unusual. Not just for the obvious reasons, but about a year ago I lost my job which previously allowed me to travel so much. Fortunately I found a similar position, which does not require any travel. I did not like the lack of travel until March, when I realized that it is probably the best thing that happened to me recently, particularly that I ended up working as an accessibility consultant in the health sector. But let’s start with the end, as I am the least proud of that part.

Though I wrote 16 posts in the last year, which is better than my annual average, I did not write anything for almost a half year, and I was also debating if I should write this birthday post, but it is almost a tradition. Also, I feel I need to talk about the good and the bad.

It is sad that I will not be able to travel for a while, and even then things will be different. Probably the last thing I want to do is to organize trips based on touch, exactly what I did for several years. Numismatics and coin collecting will have to happen virtually and over the mail.

I also thought that we have so many problems, there is so much to do, I just could not bring myself to writing more posts while I could do something more important. Except, I could not figure out what it is, and I really miss numismatic research. However, in the meantime, I did heavily invest myself into work, and I’ve been studying to be even more competitive. Losing a job was not fun, and I hope I will not have to go through it again.

Now let’s look at the more productive part of the year.

Since my last birthday post I only took one trip, to attend the Worlds Fair of Money in Chicago where I also made a presentation about accessible currency. Since last August, I have not smelled any jet fuel. However, after a long delay, I wrote another travel piece about visiting the Hungarian National Museum’s numismatic collection, though technically it happened right before the sixth birthday.

I spent the first half of last year with currency research which inspired a few posts. Currency research is definitely not too blind friendly, but what can I do, it is always the challenging stuff that interests me. So while I was dealing with some difficulties, I wrote about the challenges of collecting currency. But I do have to admit, I do collect currency, though it is mostly limited to tactile currency, but without a collection my research does not make any sense. Yes, last year I did say I was not a currency collector. I think it changed. And while I was doing research, I put together a bunch of bookmarks, so I wrote a piece about all the accessible currency news from around the world. Depending on the amount of information, I am planning to do something similar at the end of this year as well. On a related note, at the beginning of January Reserve Bank of India made available a currency identification app, which I have reviewed.

Then a few interesting things, which are now viewed in a very different light than when I wrote them. My last post in February was discussing if electronic payments will solve the accessible currency problem. A few weeks later, we certainly put it to the test, and I feel we have speeded up the adoption of electronic payment much more than expected, but that’s probably the topic of a separate post. In another post I have examined if coin museums should be accessible for blind people. This idea will have to be put on the back burner for a while. Speaking of museums, I had an interview I enjoyed so much. I heard about the coin petting zoo at the Lawrence University, and I contacted the organizers who put together a really great post for me. I have decided not to change anything, but to copy most of our email correspondance into a post.

Lastly, I have started an interesting series which I would like to continue in the near future. Around 1981 a series of coins were issued for the International Year of Disabled Persons. After an overview post, I have examined four of the coins from the Isle of Man. When I wrote the post I only had two of the coins, but in the meantime I found the third one. It may not make sense to discuss the entire series, but a few countries issued some very interesting coins, one of them is Portugal, and fortunately I have both of those coins, so I owe a post at least on those ones.

Aside from the blog posts, I feel that I have made a big progress in the accessible currency research I’m working on, now it seems like forever, but I am nowhere near where I would like to be. I have to admit, I have not touched that work since March.

I have added about 500 coins to my collection, it is hard to tell how many in July, because I archive my documents on the last day of each year, but about 500 coins is what I can handle in a year together with cataloging and doing at least a half decent research. One of my goals this year is to review countries one by one and complete series, instead of going after the next shiny object, but now I do both. I definitely made progress on working on particular series, but completing a country is not all that easy, in most cases it is impossible. In the meantime, many coins become available which I just have to have immediately. But that’s also the joy of collecting, being open to new ideas.

In summary, though I have done a lot for about a half year, this is not where I want to leave this blog, and I definitely plan to continue writing in the future. I have about 40 post ideas listed which I would like to work on, which will take more than a year. But right now, I feel that there are more important things to do, I want to make sure that our family has all we need, and I would also like to find some way to help those who are less fortunate, because so far, things were going quite well for us, while others are in a serious need.

Hopefully, to a better year.