Item: i93395

Authentic Coin of:

Peru
100th Anniversary of the Battle of Iquique
1979 Silver 5000 Soles de Oro 36mm (33.80 grams) .925 Silver (1.0001 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 276 (1979)
HUASCAR 1979, The Huascar, a mixed sail and steam ship built in Britain for Peru in 1860, captured by Chile, currently a Museum ship for both Chile and Peru.
BANCO DENTRAL DE RESERVA DEL PERU 31007 GRS PLATA 0925 CINCO MIL SOLES DE ORO, Arms and value.

Coin Notes:
Huáscar is an ironclad turret ship built in Britain for Peru in the 1860s. Her price was a bit more than £81,000. She was the flagship of the Peruvian Navy and participated in the Battle of Pacocha and the War of the Pacific of 1879–1883 before being captured and commissioned into the Chilean Navy. Today she is one of the few surviving ships of her type. The ship has been restored and is a memorial ship. She is named after the 16th-century Inca emperor, Huáscar.

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The Battle of Iquique was a naval engagement that occurred between a Chilean corvette under the command of Arturo Prat and a Peruvian ironclad under the command of Miguel Grau Seminario on 21 May 1879, during the naval stage of the War of the Pacific, and resulted in a Peruvian victory. The War of the Pacific was a conflict that pitted Chile against Peru and Bolivia. The battle took place off the then-Peruvian port of Iquique. The Peruvian ironclad Huáscar, commanded by Miguel Grau Seminario, sank the Esmeralda, a Chilean wooden corvette captained by Arturo Prat Chacón, after four hours of combat.

The Bolivian government had threatened to confiscate and to sell the Antofagasta Nitrate & Railway Company, a mining enterprise with Chilean and British investors, by a decree on 1 February 1879. In response, the Chilean government sent a small military force which disembarked and seized control of the port of Antofagasta on 14 February. This event made Bolivian President Hilarión Daza declare war on Chile, and also forced Peru to honor a secret 1873 treaty with Bolivia. Although Peru tried to negotiate and to stop the imminent conflict, Chile, knowing of this pact, declared war on both Peru and Bolivia on 5 April. Another small Chilean force took control of the city of Calama after its victory in the Battle of Topater on March 23. From the beginning of the conflict, both sides clearly knew that control of the sea was the key to obtaining victory. Whichever country controlled the sea could freely transport troops and land them at any strategic point. So, during the first year of the war, Chilean strategy focused on destroying the Peruvian Navy.

In order to achieve this goal, the Chilean naval commander, Juan Williams Rebolledo, planned to sail north with his entire fleet, trying to engage the Peruvian Navy at Callao and achieve domination of the sea once and for all. The main ships of the Chilean Navy were sent towards the Peruvian port of Callao. Two old, wooden ships, the corvette Esmeralda and the schooner Covadonga, commanded by Captains Arturo Prat and Carlos Condell respectively, were left blockading the Peruvian port of Iquique. However, as the Chilean Navy steamed north towards Callao, two ironclad ships of the Peruvian Navy steamed south from Callao, unseen. These ships were the monitor Huáscar and the armored frigate Independencia, commanded by Rear Admiral Miguel Grau (then a Captain), the commanding officer of the Peruvian Navy, and Captain Juan Guillermo More. The wooden corvette Esmeralda was constructed in 1854 in Henry Pitcher’s shipyard, arriving in Valparaíso in 1856. This vessel was named Esmeralda after the frigate of the same name captured by Lord Cochrane at El Callao in 1820. Esmeralda displaced 854 tons, and was armed with twenty 32-pound cannons and two 12-pound cannons. In 1868, this was replaced with twelve 40-pound rifled cannons and four 40-pound Whitworth cannons. The Peruvian ironclad Huáscar was built in 1865 in the Laird Brothers’ shipyard in Birkenhead, England. Huáscar displaced 1,180 tons and was armed with two cannons of 300 lb (140 kg), two cannons of 40 lb (18 kg), one cannon of 12 lb (5.4 kg), and one Gatling machine gun. This ship could reach a speed of 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph).

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru is an extremely biodiverse country with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west to the peaks of the Andes mountains vertically extending from the north to the southeast of the country to the tropical Amazon Basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon river.

Peruvian territory was home to several ancient cultures, ranging from the Norte Chico civilization in the 32nd century BC, the oldest civilization in the Americas, to the Inca Empire, the largest and most sophisticated state in pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty that encompassed most of its South American colonies, with its capital in Lima. Peru formally proclaimed independence in 1821, and following the military campaigns of José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar, and the decisive battle of Ayacucho, Peru secured independence in 1824. In the ensuing years, the country enjoyed relative economic and political stability, which ended shortly before the War of the Pacific with Chile. Throughout the 20th century, Peru endured armed territorial disputes, coups, social unrest, and internal conflicts, as well as periods of stability and economic upswing. Alberto Fujimori was elected to the presidency in 1990; his government was credited with economically stabilizing Peru and successfully ending the Shining Path insurgency, though he was widely accused of human rights violations and suppression of political dissent. Fujimori left the presidency in 2000 and was charged with human rights violations and imprisoned until his pardon by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in 2017.

Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. It is classified as an emerging market with a high level of human development and an upper middle income level with a poverty rate around 19 percent. It is one of the region’s most prosperous economies with an average growth rate of 5.9% and it has one of the world’s fastest industrial growth rates at an average of 9.6%. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing; along with other growing sectors such as telecommunications and biotechnology. The country forms part of The Pacific Pumas, a political and economic grouping of countries along Latin America’s Pacific coast that share common trends of positive growth, stable macroeconomic foundations, improved governance and an openness to global integration. Peru ranks high in social freedom and it has the third lowest homicide rate in South America; it is an active member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Pacific Alliance, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the World Trade Organization; and is considered as a middle power.

Peru has a multiethnic population of over 31 million, which includes Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians. The main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechua, Aymara or other native languages. This mixture of cultural traditions has resulted in a wide diversity of expressions in fields such as art, cuisine, literature, and music.