A Silver Balboa and the Panama Canal

For much of the 1990's I lived in South America and the Caribbean. It afforded me chances to travel and see most of the many of the countries in in both regions. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I did it while I was young. I still love to travel, but it's not as easy as it once was...

One country I'm glad I was able to visit was Panama. Not only is Panama City a beautiful place, but I really wanted to see the canal. It is an impressive sight in person, and it is huge! If you ever have the opportunity to visit it's well worth the trip.

A bonus of being in another part of the world was to continue to expand my silver coin collection. I've been collecting since I was young, and once you have the silver bug it's hard to lose. I picked up a lot of coins along the way. Even when I returned to the US I continued to buy coins from South and Central America as well as Panama.

Panama has produced beautiful silver coins for years, in the form of the Balboa, which is their currency named after the conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Today I'm sharing a coin a picked up some years ago in Phoenix, Arizona if I recall correctly (it's been a few years.)

About the coin:

From numista.com

I've always enjoyed silver Balboa coins from Panama. This particular coin was minted in the San Francisco Mint in California for the Panamanian government. After silver prices increased in the early 1960's these coins were no longer used in circulation, but were sold at a premium to collectors. This one has developed some oxidation on the obverse (front) of the coin over the years, it may have been kept it a humid environment at some point. It's still a nice coin though and it's staying in my collection!

One of the most impressive features in Panama is of course the canal.

The Panama Canal

kroberttownsend.pages.dev

The canal through Panama was a very old idea. Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who was the first European to see the Pacific Ocean, wrote of the possibility of a canal in 1513. At the time the only way to get to the Pacific was to sail around Cape Horn in South America. Peru was rich in gold and silver, but located on the Pacific, so a canal would have made transporting treasure easier. However, no attempts were seriously considered.

The first attempt to create the canal was in 1881 by the French government. It turned out to be a logistical nightmare, as the tropical jungles had venomous snakes, spiders, and insects. The biggest problem was yellow fever, transmitted by mosquito causing about 200 deaths a month. The endeavor was abandoned in 1899.

The United States then took interest in creating a waterway between the two oceans. Nicaragua was the prime candidate, but eventually Panama was chosen. Creating a canal wasn't as simple as digging a ditch between the two water bodies. The Pacific Ocean is about twenty centimeters higher than the Atlantic Ocean. This is due to multiple factors including salinity, temperature, gravity, currents, and the rotation of the earth itself.

It was decided to create a canal that was 85 feet (26 meters) above sea level to make the project easier with the existing terrain. To do so required creating locks to raise vessels up to the level of the canal, which was a huge feat of engineering. However, in the end it was the only solution that practically worked.

What is a lock you might now ask? Essentially giant doors that can open and close, they act like a dam so water can be filled or emptied. It is the only way to raise and lower huge ships to enter and exit the canal. Here are pictures of some of them in the canal.

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Where did the water come from to fill and empty those locks? Initially a lake was used, but over the years improvements with water storage pools made it more efficient as seen below in the most recent upgrades.

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From 1904 until 1914 the canal was constructed and subsequently opened for use. Since then it has been expanded multiple times to accommodate larger vessels.

The canal was under US control after construction, but in 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed an agreement to turn the canal over to Panama in 1999 as long as it was used neutrally. This became a problem recently with Chinese interests in the canal, but recent US business acquisitions have mitigated the issue. The Chinese have expressed interest in a competing canal in Nicaragua, but so far no attempts have been made.

The canal is still one of the most impressive engineering achievements in world history. It made the transport of goods easier, cheaper, and much faster between continents. Could a competing canal be in the future? Who knows? But for now, Panama has a monopoly. Use of the canal is paid for by every ship that uses the waterway (and isn't inexpensive.) Panama benefits substantially from the canal fees every year generating in excess of $3 billion, not exactly chump change!

That will wrap up my post for this Friday. I do hope you enjoyed the coin and learning about the Panama Canal. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments below, and thank you everyone for all of your support. It is deeply appreciated. Have a great weekend everyone!

References

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces9749.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal

https://brilliantio.com/why-is-pacific-ocean-higher-than-the-atlantic/

https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-faq/how-much-money-does-the-panama-canal-make-per-year/

Disclaimer:

I am not a financial planner and this isn't financial advice. Please always do your own research before investing your money. You worked hard enough to earn it!

All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated.

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