The New Orleans Mint, when things don’t go well

I spent the last week in New Orleans, and as soon as I found out about my trip, I started to prepare to visit the Mint museum. However, things didn’t turn out too well. Previously I was writing about fun travels and museum visits, and maybe a few years ago I wouldn’t have admitted what happened, or just wouldn’t have written about it. But let’s look at a museum visit where things didn’t go well, mostly due to my own mistake.

The New Orleans Mint was minting coins until 1909. Later it was a federal prison and a nuclear shelter amongst other things. After 1981, the building was a museum of coin production history. Today, it mainly serves as a jazz museum, and only one room is devoted to the mint history.

I read some about the activities of the mint, but I was not aware that it is a jazz museum now. When I started to research the numismatic aspects, I didn’t find too much, there was some mention of a room with some coins on display. At some point I thought that there maybe so little there that it would not be worth organizing a guided tour. Since there wasn’t an immediate way to contact the people who were in charge of the coin exhibit, I decided that I will just go there if I have time. I thought I could just go through the exhibit and use my phone to read the signs or descriptions.

I have to admit, it was a mistake, it was poorly prepared from my part, maybe during covid I was losing my trip planning muscles, but after the facts, I don’t even know what I was doing, it just didn’t make sense. First of, I should have contacted the museum just to make sure ther is or isn’t anything that would be worth going there for. Second, I should have decided if I’ll go there or not, and not just leave it for the last minute. It turned out that while there wasn’t much there, I could have gotten more out of it if I planned well.

The mint section of the exhibit was quite small, a room that probably wasn’t more than 20 feet with displays on both sides. There were a few things on display, a press table, a coin weighing machine and a press, which I could have gotten more out of if I arranged for a hands-on tour. There were also displays, which ultimately I was not able to read with my phone. Normally it is not a problem, but maybe I was pointing my phone to the wrong direction, or for any reason it just wasn’t able to read the text. I practically couldn’t read anything.

The museum also had a gift shop, and I was assuming that I could buy something related to the mint. Instead of assuming, I should have made sure in advance. The gift shop was a record store, with absolutely nothing about the mint. Again, poor planning from my part.

I have to say, I felt like when I was a kid at school who didn’t do his homework, wondering why I got a failing grade. But now that I am back on the road again, I’ll do better this time. The takeaway, if there is such a thing here is that just dropping by a museum for someone who is blind, is not necessarily a fruitful venture.