When you can’t see the coins you buy, sooner or later it is inevitable to buy a fake. One of the most frequent questions I get from people is how do I know if a coin is real or fake. The short answer is, I don’t. But there is much more to it,.
Category Archives: Blindness
The Bank of England describes their collection for visually impaired people
The Bank of England started an interesting initiative, describing their collection. As they claim on their site, it is suitable for visually impaired adults. There is no information about the initiative, but it speaks for itself.
Should coin museums be accessible for the blind?
Throughout my travels, I have visited several coin museums and coin exhibits. Thanks to all the people who made this experience enjoyable, a new world of understanding numismatics opened up to me. As I visited more and more numismatic collections, I was always thinking if this experience could be replicated for other blind people to …
Continue reading “Should coin museums be accessible for the blind?”
The challenges of collecting paper money
Originally the title of this post was going to be why I am not collecting paper currency. But over the months as I was putting my thoughts together (AKA procrastinating) to write this post, I had to admit that I do have a bank note collection, and for that matter, I do collect accessible currency …
Coin identifier apps
When it comes to coin identifier apps, it really depends on what you want to use it for. In this post, I will give you an overview of what is out there in terms of coin identifier apps, and coin identification solutions and related research.
Sponsor a book at the Open Library
I recently sent a message to the staff at the Internet Archive and received details about Open Library’s new book sponsorship program which lets readers pay to digitize missing titles and add them into the library’s lending program.
An excellent online coin dealer
Recently I’ve been buying coins from a wonderful coin dealer online. I like his services so much, I wanted to share it with you. Originally he was recommended by my collector friend, Ole Sjoelund. His name is Gundars Sokolovskis, and he is from Latvia. Gundars sells mostly 20th and 21st century circulation coins, though he …
Accessing protected DAISY documents on Archive.org
The Internet Archive, Archive.org contains almost two million books which are protected, but are freely available for people with print disabilities. Most of these protected books are not available electronically from other places. However, accessing these materials is not immediately obvious. In this post I will describe the problem, and how to get around it. …
Continue reading “Accessing protected DAISY documents on Archive.org”
Kenya makes coins accessible for the visually impaired
The Central Bank of Kenya announced the redesign of the Kenyan coins at the end of 2018. An interesting component of the announcement was that the new coin designs are to be more accessible for visually impaired people. The announcement circulated on the internet in slightly different variations, both in English and Swahili. Here is …
Continue reading “Kenya makes coins accessible for the visually impaired”
Accessible coins in India
When we talk about accessible currency, mostly we think about banknotes, which are usable for people with disabilities. In most countries, we can assume that coins can be distinguished easily. This is true for the most part in most countries. There are, however, a few countries where coins are harder to differentiate. When I was …