About me

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the blog.

My name is Tom Babinszki. I was born totally blind, which is not the first thing I tell people about my self, but for the purpose of the blog it is one of the most important things. The other important is that I’m a coin collector.

Anybody can collect coins. But when you can’t see the coins, things are different.

In this blog I will tell you all about it. What is fun about coin collecting if you can’t see the coins. How I keep track of the coins, what is interesting and what isn’t. Over the years, I found that there is much more to coin collecting, and I also started to write bout related issues, such as accessible currency, coin museums, etc.

Besides coin collecting, I’ve been working as an accessibility advisor, helping developers make technology available to people with disabilities.

I have two little girls I spend time with when I’m not working or collecting coins. Ok, I have to admit, I’m trying to win them for the hobby, with more or less success, depending on the day.

I also enjoy traveling and languages, which is really not far from coin collecting. I guess one is responsible for the other.

If you would like to read more about how the whole thing started, the best place is to start is:
How it started.

View Comments

  • You have set yourself a hard task, Tom, but I see you are up to it. Good luck to you and may your collection prosper.

    Here's a suggestion. Take a coin. Any coin. Determine the country it circulated in and the year. With these two data, find out what happened in that country just before that year. Wikipedia would be a good starting point. If you find an event, imagine what role the coin could have played in it. If you find a person, imagine the coin could overhear a conversation this person had with an opponent.

    One of my favourite coins is the 5 pengo 1943 from Hungary. A coin from a landlocked country with a uniformed admiral on it! The admiral was nationalist, patriotic, conservative, diplomatic and a bit vain. The country was newly independent but with a long history, surrounded by mighty neighbours, involved in a world war. Can you imagine a conversation between admiral Horthy and Adolf Hitler in 1943?

    Have fun,

    Peter

    • Hi Peter,
      Thanks for your comment.
      Interesting, one of my favorite coins is the 1938 5 Pengo, I have posted it as the wallpaper for my mobile phone. Not sure why...
      There is so much that goes with a coin. Though I don't own a large collection, sometimes I wonder why I collect so many coins, not enough time to spend all the time you want on each coin, there is just so much culture and history related to it one could research. But I guess that's part of the hobby, I need to have everything else I don't have yet.

  • Hi Tom,

    I think your blog will interest quite a few people out the. I have "advertised" your blog on the 2 coin sites I mentioned to you earlier and I can see somebody already reacted.... goodie.

    Take care and go adding things to it. If you need help you know where to ask.

    Ole (Globetrotter)

    • Hi Ole,

      Thanks for the promo.
      And just for new readers' sake, this blog was very much inspired by Ole.
      Years ago we were talking about finding blind coin collectors. I haven't checked recently, but those days I couldn't find any.
      I started a discussion list that nobody used. So, I took a different approach with this blog, I wonder if there are any blind coin collectors out there who will find it. However, I don't intend this blog to be for blind collectors only, but we will see where it will go.

  • Great blog, what I would love to see if your experience in finding out some of the details of the coins that people like us can't find ... I am sure you would have discovered more interesting things on coins that us ... we are always clouded / crippled by what we see that we just can't see or ignore other details :)
    Good luck and look forward to see more articles

    • I think I have very sensitive fingers. It is often an advantage over being able to see something. But when it comes to coin collecting, the lack of sight is a disadvantage. I can't put it in any other way, but I can't think of any advantages in coin collecting which any other senses provide. I didn't pick this hobby because it is easy, but because I am so interested in it. I would love to give you a much more interesting answer, but I'm afraid there isn't one.

  • I would expect that your hearing is pretty good. Try experimenting with the sound of different coins. If you have a Chinese cash coin, include it in the experiment. You can smell if a coin needs cleaning. Start with one that has been in bad plastic too long. It should have a very unpleasant, saur smell.

    Measuring coins may be easier if you can compare them with a known benchmark. Here is something I haven't tried, so it may not work at all: constitute a set of coins with different diameters running from say 10 to 30 millimetres. Find a piece of bad quality carton. Wet it. Press the coins into the wet carton one by one. Let the carton dry. Label the impressions for size (hope you have an appropriate instrument). This should give you a tool to determine the size of a coin quickly.

    • Yes, the sound of coins is interesting. The sound different if you just throw one on the table, or when you shake a bunch of them together. I found a couple of silver quarters just by shaking a handful of coins. There is one practical problem that I have, if I take a handful of coins out of the catalog, if I can't recognize all of them, they may not go back at the right place.
      I have never experimented much with smelling coins, it is an interesting idea.

  • What a different dimension this is, I closed my eyes and felt a coin it put a whole new perspective on my 12 years of collecting.
    What a great thing you are doing here. Keep it going I am sure it will be a great journey for all who stop by.

    • Hi Donald, I'm glad that you like what I'm doing on this site. I like that you approached it as changing your own perspective. Certainly, I can talk about what it means to collect coins and not be able to see them, but if you are able to add a new perspective to what you are doing, I think I have done something here.

  • This is such a unique perspective! Love your passion for your work - it really comes through in your writing. Looking forward to reading more about your work!

  • Hello Tom, just found this blog. I'm also totally blind and I work as a programmer. Over the past year or so I've begun stacking some silver. I stack pre 1965 90% silver dimes, quarters, and half dollars as well as silver eagles. I'm wanting to expand my bullion stack but haven't decided what I'll begin adding next. One important question I have is I'm seeking a talking scale that weighs down to at least 0.01 grams. Nothing I've found so far that talks weighs more accurately then 1.0 grams. Do you know of a suitable scale? Thanx,

    • Hi John,
      I only know a handful of blind people who collect coins, so I'm really happy you wrote.
      Weighing coins is a real difficulty. I have a talking kitchen skale which measures in 1 gram increments, but for coins it is not enough. Measuring diameter and thickness is also difficult, I can only be one or two MM within the actual measurement. When I was in Iowa, they showed me a tool which measures to 1 64th of an inch, but that is a hard tool and will scratch/oil the coins. For coin mesurements in general the databases these days are pretty good, my favorite is Numista, but to get actual measure of my coins I don't have a good method. Ok, I'll stop here. There is so much to say, I'll just write it up in a separate post. Thanks for the inspiration. Feel free to get in touch privately and I can give you more details. Just curious, how did you come across my blog?

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