Hearing Coins

I just met a really interesting young lady who is both blind and autistic, and collects US and Canadian coins and also various tokens. She handed me her bag of coins, which included dozens of various coins and tokens from the late 19th and early 20th century, and she was able to identify them ALL, including dates and major devices, by feel and SOUND. That's right, she would feel it in her fingers and lift it to her ear to hear the sound it made as she rubbed it. She couldn't quite articulate what was different from coin to coin, just that it had a slightly different feel and sound. I thought it was amazing how she could do this and just had to share it.

I brought her some ancients, of course, and she was delighted. A follis of Justinian I, big and chunky, a denarius of Julia Domna, and a 1/16th shekel from Tyre(a gift to me which was re-gifted). I figured a Greek, Roman, and Byzantine would be a good start. I'm excited for the next time I visit.

 

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That’s wonderful. I imagine she’ll have a lot of fun with those. Thanks for sharing your story.

 

Wow! Very nice of you! I'm sure she'll have them all figured out in no time. I wonder if she'll find ancients easier or harder to deal with.

 

I’m wondering the same thing. I would think easier, at least for the big guys.

 

I would think so too...but then again I didn't think someone would be able to hear and feel the major devices and year of a modern minted token or coin - amazing!

 

That's interesting! I have about 20 coins on my table, I pretty much (but not totally) remember what I had out there. I closed my eyes and gave it a shot. Not counting the square Indo-Greek coins and my HUGE domitian sestertius, it was pretty hard!

I found that I'm pretty good at IDing a coin as "Greek" by touch (thick flan?), I got the type correct every time. I can also ID "LRB" by touch, but not what it is.

 

See if you can ID the coins by sound! There are 4 different coins you will hear. I just pick up the edge of the coin a bit and let it drop on my table and recorded the sound.

Here are the options....

A. Constantinian AE 3 soldiers with standards coin.

B. Roman Billon tet of Alexandria from Commodus.

C. Domitian AE sestertius.

D. Sassanian AR drachm.

 

D, A, B, C? (Cool idea, @chrsmat71!)

I've heard about people who see colors when they hear sounds (https://everydaycuriosityblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/seeing-color-in-the-sounds/), but hearing coins is super fascinating!

 

Very neat, and very nice of you

 

That's amazing and very cool, Nick. I'm sure those ancients you gifted will open up a new world for her .

 

D, A, C, B, that's what I thought. A thin silver coin must sound waaay different from a thick bronze one. And the last one bounced much shorter, so is probably small and thick, not large like a sestertius.

 

D, A, B, C

Very cool! I'd guess ancient coins would be much easier to identify without sight due to their individual variations.

 

It is said that cast fakes can be told by their soapy feel. I wonder if your friend could pick a known cast fake out of a group of genuine coins better than you could. She might enjoy a late Alexandrian tetradrachm and an earlier drachm due to their fabric.
http://www.forumancientcoins.com/dougsmith/fabric.html

 

Fascinating. I wonder if the uneven surfaces of many ancient coins would create some tactile “noise“ that would complicate identification. I suppose if the coin were struck with decent relief, she could do quite well. Kudos to you for your kind generosity.

 

Worth the experience for sure. I literally tested her with at least 50 coins. I was most surprised by her ability to differentiate between modern cents- wheat ears vs. memorials vs. shields, etc.

 

It is definitely admitted that there are extremely rare people who can detect color by touch. They feel the vibrations related to every color. ( half wavelength).

 

With practice I bet she could. In fact, my father, who lives next door to the the girl and introduced us, suggested the same thing. I might ask if I can make a video next time.

 

very thoughtful gesture and heart-warming story.....when i 1st started collecting ancients, i'd bought the two As's of Caligula. when i received the 2nd one, i'd dropped it on the table and noticed a peculiar ring it had. i dropped the other one i had bought earlier and they sounded way different(not to mention their color was different, but i was purdy new at the game then). i contacted the seller of the last coin and told him his coin looked fine, but sounded different from the bronze on i had, he told it should because his was made of brass .

 

I feel the need to mention that some ancients will sound different when dropped due to crystallization and dropping them might cause them to split in half. I would not do it with relatively pure silver.

 

This is fascinating, thank you for sharing.

I am a totally blind collector myself, but I have no idea how to even start recognizing the dates. This is the second person I have heard about who can figure out the date without sight, but I have not met anybody. I would be very interested in getting in touch with someone who can explain this to me. Most importantly because if there is a way I could develop my touch in this direction, it could help me a lot in collecting.

I recognize coins by touch, I'd say about 500 different ones, of course not the dates. At some point I was thinking about training myself to recognize more, but in all honesty it is not relevant to me after a while. I catalog my coins and record the exact locations, so I initially do need help from a sighted person, unless I know what a coin is exactly. At this point, there is no need to be able to recognize a particular coin, but I have to say, it is fun to memorize them, but when it comes to spending time, it is even more fun to read about the background of a coin.

If anybody could put me in touch with people who can tell dates by touch, I'd really appreciate it.