The Czech Mint introduced Thomas Alva Edison as the first inventor on the silver coin from Genius Series of the 19th century. The man who lit the world and filled it with music has received over a thousand patents in his life. He was a great businessman and built his own empire unlike his contemporaries who ended up in oblivion.

Edison was constantly underestimated. When he was born, the doctor was convinced he would not survive, and when he started going to school, the teacher considered him a fool. But Edison was extremely inquiring and enterprising. He liked experimenting with chemicals and published his own newspaper when he was just 14 years old. He made his editorial office in a railway carriage at the station to be at the source of the information. However, the wagon was destroyed by fire during one of his chemical experiments and the conductor beaten him that he became almost deaf for the rest of his life. The newspaper was over, but Edison met a telegraph at the station. He became a telegraphist and became interested in electricity. Soon he came up with his first invention - an electronic voting machine. Other revolutionary patents followed. It is an paradox that almost deaf Edison invented the first sound recorder - a phonograph - and also a carbon microphone without which phone of the A.G. Bella would never have succeeded. Despite popular belief, Edison did not invent the bulb, but improved it that it lasted for fifty hours, and even a thousand hours a year later. This was followed by a dynamo, then a first power station, a cinematograph… Critics say that Edison appropriated the credit of inventors working in the laboratories and plants he built. But the reality is that these hard workers would have probably never realized their ideas without Edison's resources. Edison divided the development process into sub-tasks performed by many people. Edison's assistants had a stable financial background and could continue experimenting because more patents were created in the same time. Though Edison was far from a flawless man, he was respected, which was evidenced by the fact that all the bulbs in America went out on the day of his funeral…

The reverse side of the coin was processed by the medal maker Asamat Baltaev, DiS. It presents the inventor's portrait in advanced age, together with the inscription T. A. EDISON. The composition is supplemented by a part of the technical diagram of the phonograph and a depiction of a man recording his voice on a wax cylinder using this device. The obverse side of the coin bears drawings of various inventions of the 19th century. Since the Czech Mint issues the coins with a foreign license of the island of Niue, they bear the name and the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, the nominal value of 1 DOLLAR (NZD) and the year of the issue 2020.

You can store four coins dedicated to brilliant inventors in a special collector´s box which can also be found in the offer of the Czech Mint.