British, Italian and World Coins, Commemorative Medals, Numismatic Books

Panama, Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique, 1880, a silver medal or subscribers’ ticket by L.-O. Roty for the Banque Parisienne, artisans in greeting with robed female figure, rev. legend in eight lines, 34mm (Roty Compagnnonage p.89; BDM V, 230; Gaz. Num. 1897, p.131, 2; cf. DNW 49, 1097). Very fine and very rare
£80-100

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Medals Related To Canals and Shipping from the Stanley Holland Collection.

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In 1878 the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique, headed by Ferdinand de Lesseps, won from Colombia (of which Panama was then a part) the concession to build a sea-level canal through the Isthmus. Work began in 1881, but malaria, yellow fever and the nature of the terrain meant that the project halted in 1887 and the company went bankrupt. After the independence of Panama in 1903, the US government, under Roosevelt, secured the creation of the Panama Canal Zone and work on a new canal, controlled by locks, was started. This was completed in 1914 and opened in 1915