3379) El Dorado, Barbados: A $5 (Five Dollars) Silver Coin with a Sliding Motif presents the fabled city in the Americas: Date/Year of Coin issue: 2024:
"El Dorado" (Spanish: for "The Golden") is commonly associated with the legend of a gold city, kingdom, or empire purportedly located somewhere in the Americas.
Originally, "El Hombre Dorado" ("The Golden Brother") or "El Rey Dorado" ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (Zipa - or King of the Muisca people), an indigenous people of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia, who as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged himself in Lake Guatavita.
A second location for El Dorado was inferred from rumours, which inspired several unsuccessful expeditions in the late 16th century in search of a city called Manoa on the shores of Lake Parime or Parima.
In pursuit of the legend, Spanish conquistadores and numerous others searched what is presently Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of Guyana and northern Brazil, for the city and its fabulous king.
In the course of these explorations, much of northern South America, including the Amazon River, was mapped.
By the beginning of the 19th century, most people dismissed the existence of the city as a myth.
The legend of the Seven Cities of Gold (Seven Cities of Cibola) led to Francisco Vázquez de Coronado's expedition of 1540 across the New Mexico territory.
This became mixed with the stories of El Dorado, which was sometimes said to be one of the seven cities.
Several literary works have used the name in their titles, sometimes as "El Dorado", and other times as "El dorado".
The Muisca people occupied the highlands of Cundinamarca and Boyacá departments of Colombia in two migrations from outlying lowland areas, one starting c. 1270 BC, and a second between 800 BC and 500 BC.
At those times, other more ancient civilisations also flourished in the highlands. The Muisca Confederation had a comparable level of organisational development as the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilisations.
In the mythology of the Muisca, Mnya the Gold or golden colour, represents the energy contained in the trinity of Chiminigagua, which constitutes the creative power of everything that exists. Chiminigagua is related to Bachué, Cuza, Chibchacum, Bochica, and Nencatacoa.
Additional gold and silver strikes:
It appears today that the Muisca obtained their gold in trade, and while they possessed large quantities of it over time, no great store of the metal was ever accumulated.
In the second half of the 16th century, the Spanish silver strike at Potosí in Upper Peru (modern Bolivia) was producing an estimated 60 percent of the world's silver.
In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England died, bringing to an end the era of Elizabethan adventurism.
In 1618, Walter Raleigh, the great inspirer, was beheaded after returning from an expedition to Venezuela in search of El Dorado for an attack on a Spanish outpost.
In 1695, bandeirantes in the south struck gold along a tributary of the São Francisco River in the highlands of State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The prospect of real gold overshadowed the illusory promise of "gold men" and "lost cities" in the vast interior of the north.
In 1871, the gold mine at El Callao (Venezuela), a few miles at south of Orinoco River, was for a time one of the richest in the world, and the goldfields as a whole saw over a million ounces exported between 1860 and 1883. The immigrants who emigrated to the gold mines of Venezuela were mostly from the British Isles and the British West Indies.
The Orinoco Mining Arc (OMA), officially created on 24.02.2016 as the Arco Mining Orinoco National Strategic Development Zone, is an area rich in mineral resources that the Republic of Venezuela has been operating since 2017.
It occupies mostly the north of the Bolivar state and to a lesser extent the northeast of the Amazonas state and part of the Delta Amacuro state. It has 7,000 tons of reserves of gold, copper, diamond, coltan, iron, bauxite and other minerals.
A photograph taken from the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021 showed golden areas near the Amazon River. These were determined to be extensive illegal gold mining operations. They suggest the rate of forest loss more than tripled as gold prices rose in 2008, largely driven by small, illegal mining operations that now account for most activity in the region.
Despite the fact that no concrete evidence has ever been found to verify the existence of the lost city of El Dorado, that hasn’t stopped thousands of people down through the centuries from searching for it.
The Coin:
- This is a coin that hides a secret that thousands of people have perished searching for since hushed words of its existence were whispered into the ears of the first Europeans to explore South America.
- It is the Lost City of El Dorado, the mythic “City of Gold” whose siren songs have enthralled explorers with its promises of untold riches and claimed thousands of lives since the 1500s.
- The Amazon Rainforest Reveals The Lost City:At first glance, this exotic-looking antiqued coin struck in five ounces of highly pure 99.9% fine silver shows an intrepid explorer slashing his way through the thick jungle vegetation of the Amazon rainforest.
- By sliding the two sides of the coin apart the coin reveals a gold-plated image of El Dorado gleaming as if the jungle has parted to reveal the lost city’s golden treasures!
COIN HIGHLIGHTS:
TRIBUTE TO THE LOST CITY OF EL DORADO – This coin pays tribute to the mythical Lost City of El Dorado. It shows an explorer hacking his way through the Amazon rainforest on one side while the coin’s obverse shows the Barbados Coat of Arms.
SLIDING MOTIF DESIGN – Featuring a unique sliding motif design, when the two halves of the coin are slid in opposite directions, an image of the El Dorado appears selectively plated in gold.
STRUCK IN HIGHLY PURE SILVER – Each El Dorado Sliding Motif Coin was struck in five ounces of highly pure 99.9% fine silver and measures 60 mm in diameter.
LEGAL-TENDER COIN – These 2024-dated Five-Ounce Silver El Dorado Sliding Motif Coins are $5 legal tender in the island nation of Barbados.
UNIQUE ANTIQUED FINISH – Your 2024 Barbados $5 Five-Ounce Silver El Dorado Sliding Motif Coin comes with a unique antique finish. This type of finish is typically applied by hand, meaning that no two coins are exactly alike.
EXTREMELY SMALL LIMITED EDITION – The limited mintage for the 2024 Barbados $5 Five-Ounce Silver El Dorado Sliding Motif Antiqued Coin has been set at just 249 for worldwide release.
It is a $5 Five-Ounce Silver El Dorado Sliding Motif Antiqued Coin. Just 249 of these fascinating coins have been struck
Issued on behalf of Barbados, an independent British Commonwealth nation located on an island in the eastern Caribbean, this legal-tender $5 coin will come beautifully housed in its original mint packaging along with a mint-issued Certificate of Authenticity (COA).
The specifications of this Coin are:
Availability: In Stock; Year of Issue: 2024; Country: Barbados; Metal Composition: .999 Fineness Silver (Ag); Coin Quality: Antique Finish (AF); Denomination: $5.00 (Five Dollars); Coin Weight: 155.5 Grams or 5 Ounces - oz; Dimensions/Size: 60.00 mm; Mintage: 249 pieces.
Links:
Barbados:
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Interesting Posts from Algeria:
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Links to posts on Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC):
2) Currency & Coinage of Ghana: Cedis & Pesewas
6) Two new Cedi Banknotes of GH200 & GH100 and a GH2 Cedi Coin introduced in 11/2019
Links to other interesting posts on our Ghana visit in 2013:
1) Lake Bosumchwe or Bosumchwi, Ghana
2) El Mina Castle/Fort, Cape Coast, Ghana
3) History of Coinage and Banknotes of Ghana
6) Larabanga mosque and the Mystic Stone
7) Food, Culture and Music of Ghana
9) Oware: The Ancient National Board Game of Ghana
Interesting posts from Sierra Leone:
Links to posts on Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC):
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