This is a longtime nautical tradition for sailing ships. Sailors in her time period (1787) were quite superstitious. The coins are always placed by whoever commissions the building of a ship, so Mr. Disney himself, placed them. The coins are minted from the year the Columbia was commissioned; 1958.

She was added as an Attraction to the Park in 1958. Her maidenhead is one of a kind also. (She is the maiden who guides the ship and sailors believed she was the soul of it.) It is said that Columbia's Godmother is Mrs. Fowler; she is the wife of Retired Admiral Fowler who has his posterity at the Fowler's Harbor, where Columbia is docked when not in use. A ship's God mother performs the distinct baptismal ritual of breaking the champagne bottle on the bow before the first launch.

Ahoy!!