First Readable U.S. Braille Coin Is Released
The Louis Braille Bicentennial Commemorative Dollar was officially released today during a ceremony at the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. 
The Braille coin has been highly anticipated by the blind community, and especially by the NFB, which will be the recipient of up to $4 million from the sale of the Braille coins. The obverse ("heads" side) features an appealing portrait of Louis Braille designed by prolific U.S. Mint Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) Master Designer Joel Iskowitz and sculpted by U.S. Mint Sculptor/Engraver Phebe Hemphill.
The Braille coin, which is not meant for general circulation but is being sold by the U.S. Mint as a collectible coin in 90% silver versions only, is the first U.S. coin to have genuine, readable braille on it. (An interesting point I learned while researching my profile of the Braille coin is that "braille" isn't supposed to be capitalized when used to refer to the braille alphabet, even though it is named after its creator, Frenchman Louis Braille.)
The coin depicts Braille with his eyes open, which is another interesting point. The only known contemporary image of Louis Braille is a Daguerreotype photograph of him taken upon his death. The photo, which seems to be lost now, had been painted onto a "death mask" type of miniature shortly after Braille's death, and it serves as the primary (and virtually only) source of modern images of Louis Braille. (I couldn't get permission to post the image on my site, but you can see a nice photo of this Braille death mask miniature here.)
Because the only-known Braille image depicts him dead, Louis Braille is almost always portrayed with his eyes mostly closed. However, looking at the U.S. Mint's design candidates for the Braille coin, you can see that they all depict Braille open-eyed. I think this was an insightful decision on the part of the Mint because (and I hope I'm not being insensitive by saying this, because I don't mean to be) I think most people feel uncomfortable when they see blind people depicted with their eyes half-open or even closed, which just draws attention to their handicap. By showing Braille with a normal appearance, the coin is made accessible and very attractive to look at, rather than being a coin that might make people uncomfortable.
Another nice element of the portrait design is how the artist brings Louis Braille to life. When you compare the coin portrait to the "death mask" miniature, you can see that Braille's cheeks are filled out, rather than sunken in as he appeared in death. Braille died at the age of 43 from tuberculosis, a disease he fought for 17 years. By the time it claimed him, it is easy to imagine how horribly ravaged his face and body would have been. The artist who did the miniature was probably very kind in his portrayal; the U.S. Mint was even more so.
Although I have high praise for the Mint's execution of the Braille coin design, I am extremely annoyed that there is no braille literature packaged with the coin! The Mint (and the NFB) has made much of the fact that the coin has readable braille on it, but I think someone dropped the ball here when it was decided not to include even a token sampling of written braille along with the coin. Most sighted people know very little about braille and precious few have ever felt normal, written braille with their fingertips (unless you want to count the token fondling of the bronze braille floor numbers in downtown high-rise elevators...) This would have been a fantastic opportunity to give the general coin-buying public a hands-on experience with braille. And it's not like the Mint hasn't included some non-numismatic material in some of its previous offerings. Who can forget the Native American craft pouches that came with the 2004 Lewis & Clark Coin and Pouch Sets (some of which were later recalled due to some kind of technicality in the legal language governing what constitutes an "American Indian Artisan.")
UPDATE: The Mint has just announced some sort of "Braille Education Set" for later this spring. No details are available yet. Yay! But I don't think sales of the Braille coin are off to a rollicking start, if judging by the response time for the U.S. Mint Web site around 12:15 pm ET this afternoon is any indication. I was able to place an order for 2 Braille coins (1 Proof and 1 Uncirculated) without any delay at all. Of course, this might also mean that the U.S. Mint has solved the Web site bottleneck issue when new coins are released, too, but I'm not optimistic about this.Did you order the Braille coin? Why or why not? What do you think of the design? Please come share your opinions in the Coin Collecting forum now!"
Comments
i liked reading what you had to say and what i perceived you to be as a person until i read your comments on the braille coin. BIG mistake on my part. don’t really understand people like you (rush and shrub and the like). i may not connect with the world as you believe but i rather connect with the few that in general believe as me than your rot. whoo eee !!
Could someone please translate what john berry said?
I ordered the Braille coin today. I believe it was nicely designed and will be a great addition to my collection.
BTW, Susan, thanks for your great contribution to coin collecting. I am confident to say that there are many who will not comment that feel the same.
I ordered one of the proofs. I hope they release a cheaper bronze version for the same reasons mentioned by Susan in this blog.
I noticed when reading more about him, that Louise Braille was not American. Did he ever live here in the States? Obviously, he had a profound affect on Americans with his raised 6 dot patterns perfected from an earlier invented 12 dot pattern. But, I was under the impression that our commemorative should honor American ingenuity and ideals.
Lief Erikson comes to mind as the other “non American” icon honored on a coin. But, arguably, he discovered North America long before Columbus, neither of which stepped foot on land that would eventually become the US.
Any thoughts on this?
In all its wisdom the mint has released 2 comemms in six weeks!!!–instead of spreading them out over a years time like before. No silver planchets??? I find this hard to believe that as of 3/27 there is still no word on the collectors version of the silver (or gold) eagle W series when they have enough blanks to produce these comemms back to back. We are forced to get any 2009 precious metal coins as secondary market inflatables and even these are subject to availability and suspension. Now the unc Lincolns comems are sold out along with the first Lincoln penny roll series, maybe the mint can focus on making some W collectors coins for the eagerly awaiting collectors.
Doug, i hoe john can translate that for us, when he’s sober!
coiny
The word – is HOPE. No one is calling the kettle black.
coiny
They the BEP should start puting braill marks on all our paper currancy, it wouldn’t even be noticed by the general public i bet. Much easier accepted than on coins. Wouldn’t be as easy to incorporate braill on small coins. The monetary loss isn’t as great to the blind, by unscrupulous merchants as it in handing back large denomination bills for change. I say go for it. It should be in place now to comply with the disabilitys act. That’s federal. Easy access to money for the sight handicaped.
coiny
Ok, that Braill with an e.
Braille. There ya go.
coiny
Well, here we go again. I ordered my Braille dollars in the first five minutes of availability on March 26th. We began with an expected ship date of April 1st, and this morning I received the backorder notice saying the new expected ship date is April 16th for both the proof and traditional uncirculated coins. The Easy-Open capsule version was originally supposed to ship on April 7th, we’ll have wait until that date passes to see when they really might ship. I honestly have begun to believe that these items are in fact in stock at the PBGS warehouse and that these “backorder” notices are just a ploy to shift blame for not shipping them in a timely manner to the mint. PBGS is basically saying that it has not received any Braille dollars and doesn’t expect to get them for two more weeks. Will it then take them three or more weeks to ship them once they are in stock? My oldest order is now at 26 days of “in stock and reserved” for all items in the order with no sign of impending shipment. PBGS should not only be fired, they should be required to deliver a written apology to the mint’s customers for their terrible handling of the mint’s fulfillment process. They are so far beyond incompetent that I am not sure we have a word for it (at least not one we can use in mixed company). I had so hoped that the UHR problems were the cause of the issues with fulfillment, but that episode is behind us now, and things are getting worse, not bettter.
Clair
Yeah, I got the same message from the mint today. Braille coins on backorder until 4/16. Seems EVERYTHING I buy this year goes on backorder or is in “in stock and reserved” status for weeks and weeks. Just got my Harrison dollar rolls yesterday – 37 days after ordering. What I don’t understand is how they can “release” something for sale when they don’t even have it to ship! Oh, wait, silly me. They’re government – not a commercial business – they can do whatever they want.
One other thing – got my UHR survey request from the mint. Asked about ordering experience, not what happened afterwards. Comment section was severely limited as to number of characters accepted. Had to edit 4 times to vent frustration at after-sale experience. Let’s see if there is any response.
Dave, don’t jump on the government vs. commercial business on this issue. PBGS, the people responsible for handling all mint orders are a commercial business. There is no hard evidence that even when they say something is on backorder that they don’t, in fact, have it in stock. They are the ones who are taking all the time to deliver the goods to us. They run the ordering website, the phone lines and all customer service. They had all of the materials to ship UHR coins on the day they offered them for sale, the books were damaged, but it was PBGS that took weeks to figure out how to ship the coins without the books. It is PBGS (Pitney-Bowes Government Solutions) that has been sitting on an order of mine that has been “in stock and reserved” for 26 days now. I believe that PBGS is trying to make too much profit on what should be a very low margin service and simply not putting enough people to the task. They need to average about 11,000 orders shipped per working day and it looks like they are simply not able to even come close to that number. I honestly believe that the Braille coins exist and that PBGS has them. Maybe they are sitting in receiving and haven’t been officially entered into their system and they can claim that they are not “in stock” because they do not have anyone who can “receive” them right now. “We got a bunch of boxes from the mint last week, but we haven’t opened them yet, so the stuff in those boxes is not in stock, it’s still in backorder.” This particular commercial business is setting new low targets that governments can only someday hope to drop to the level of.
Clair