1902 Colombia 50-centavo

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A 1902 50-centavo piece from Colombia that measures 30mm in diameter and which advertises its good silver content on its reverse: “G. 12.500 LEY 0.835.” Struck at the American mint in Philadelphia to a quantity of 960,000.

Together with the small silver 5-centavo pieces also coined this year, these 1902 50-centavo coins are the first coins struck for Colombia in the U.S. It’s an interesting distinction, full of irony, because 1902 is the year that Colombia and the United States signed an agreement allowing the Americans to buy out the previous failed attempt to dig a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific at Colombia’s Isthmus of Panama.

The Colombian Senate—for whatever reason—declined to ratify the agreement, so American president Theodore Roosevelt, in an infamous example of “Gunboat Diplomacy,” helped insure the success of a Panamanian independence movement.

Panama became a separate nation, the Panama Canal was built, and the part of the Colombian coat-of-arms depicting the Isthmus as being a part of Colombia—visible at bottom, between the two sailing ships—well, the last year that was true was the year this 1902 50-centavo piece was coined.

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One of Colombia’s 1922 50-centavo “Simon Bolivars,” this being the “Rounder Head” type of 1916-34 (all struck in Philadelphia except the 1934 coins, which were San Francisco products). Like the “Sharper Head” type of 1912-1933, coined variously in Bogatá, Medellin and Birmingham, the “Rounder Heads” from Philly and San-Fran were 30mm in diameter and were struck—as proclaimed on the coins themselves—in 12.50g of .900 silver.

The two portrait types were competing contemporaries, and it was the “Sharper Head” that prevailed, reappearing when Colombia’s 50-centavo became a copper-nickel coin in 1958. Why this “Rounder Head” lost out seems immediately apparent, looking at it…

Bolivar is an older, heavier, slower man, with a somewhat less heroic hairline. It’s tempting to say that the “Rounder Head” Bolivar looks considerably less likely to lead a revolution than he might be to watch it on TV, but that can’t be true—in 1922 it was radio that was the big deal broadcast medium.

But kidding aside, 1922 was a pivotal year for Colombia and the United States. This “Friendly Head” 50-centavo piece is a settled coin, conservative in look, and status quo to the core.

And so maybe it should be. In 1922 the long-delayed 1914 Treaty regarding the Panama Canal reached fruition. Colombia received $25,000,000 in American gold, and rights to the Canal that were virtually identical to that of U.S. users. Relations between the two countries immediately began to improve.

What had changed between 1914 and 1922 to make the American Senate get out of the way? Money, and the search for oil was certainly part of it. But so was the death of Teddy Roosevelt a few years earlier. And too—though I know it can be tough to credit now—for many it really had been “the war to end wars,” and in the years immediately after WWI, for many folks, in all nations, there was a deeply sincere urge to make things right.

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