Spanish dollar

History

Main article: Currency of Spanish America

Etymology

In the 16th century, Count Hieronymus Schlick of Bohemia began minting a silver coin known as a Joachimsthaler, or simply thaler, named after Joachimsthal, the valley in the Ore Mountains where the silver was mined. The word thaler was borrowed into English as dollar and came to be used for a number of European coins, including the Spanish peso, or piece of eight.

"Peso de a Ocho" truly translates as "weight of eight", meaning that it is valued at eight royals (ocho reales), but English speakers heard "peso", and translated that as "piece". The word "weight" or "peso" is related to money due to the fact that when coin was made out of silver or gold, weighing it was often used to verify value.

Europe and colonial North America

The Joachimsthaler consisted of 451 gr of silver. This coin's success led to similar thalers being minted in Burgundy and France and their ultimate succession by the long-lived Reichsthaler of the Holy Roman Empire, used from the 16th to 19th centuries, of 25.984 g pure silver.

The Netherlands also introduced its own dollars in the 16th century: the Burgundian Cross Thaler (Bourgondrische Kruisdaalder), the German-inspired Rijksdaalder, and the Dutch lion dollar (leeuwendaalder). The latter coin was used for Dutch trade in the Middle East, in the Dutch East Indies and West Indies, and in the Thirteen Colonies of North America.

For the English North American colonists, however, the Spanish peso or "piece of eight" has always held first place, and this coin was also called the "dollar" as early as 1581. After the Declaration of American Independence, the United States dollar was introduced in 1792 at par with this coin at 371.25 grains = 0.7735 troy ounces = 24.0566 g. Alexander Hamilton arrived at these numbers based on a treasury assay of the average fine silver content of a selection of worn Spanish dollars.

The term cob was used in Ireland and the British colonies to mean a piece of eight or a Spanish-American dollar, because Spanish gold and silver coins were irregularly shaped and crudely struck before the machine-milled dollar was introduced in 1732.

Spain

After the introduction of the Guldengroschen in Austria in 1486, the concept of a large silver coin with high purity (sometimes known as "specie" coinage) eventually spread throughout the rest of Europe. Monetary reform in Spain brought about the introduction of an eight-real (or one-peso) coin in 1497, minted to the following standards:

• In 1497: dollars to a Castilian mark of silver (230.0465 grams), or 0.9306 fine (25.561 g fine silver = 0.8218 oz t)
• In 1728: $8.50 to a mark, or 0.9167 fine (24.809 g fine silver = 0.7976 oz t)
• In 1772: $8.50 to a mark, or 0.9028 fine (24.443 g fine silver = 0,78554 oz t); but true fineness 1772–1821 believed to be only 0.89.

This was supplemented in 1537 by the gold escudo, minted at 68 to a mark of gold 0.917 fine (fineness reduced to 0.906 in 1742 and 0.875 in 1786). It was valued at 15–16 reales or approximately two dollars. The famed Gold Doubloon was worth two escudos or approximately four dollars.

From the 15th to the 19th centuries the coin was minted with several different designs at various mints in Spain and the New World, having gained wide acceptance beyond Spain's borders. Thanks to the vast silver deposits that were found mainly in Potosí, in modern-day Bolivia, and to a lesser extent in Mexico (for example, at Taxco and Zacatecas), and to silver from Spain's possessions throughout the Americas, mints in Mexico and Peru also began to strike the coin. The main New World mints for Spanish dollars were at Potosí, Lima, and Mexico City (with minor mints at Bogotá, Popayán, Guatemala City, and Santiago), and silver dollars from these mints could be distinguished from those minted in Spain by the Pillars of Hercules design on the reverse.

The dollar or peso was divided into eight reales in Spanish Latin America until the 19th century, when the peso was divided into 100 centavos. However, monetary turbulence in Spain, beginning under the reign of King Philip II, resulted in the dollar being subdivided as follows in Spain only:

• Until 1642: $1 = 8 reales, subsequently called reales nacionales
• From 1642: $1 = 10 reales provinciales
• From 1687: $1 = reales de vellón (made of billon alloy; edict not effective)
• From 1737: $1 = 20 reales de vellón
• In 1864: $1 = 2 silver escudos (different from the gold escudo)
• And finally, in 1869: $1 = 5 Spanish pesetas, the latter at par with the French franc in the Latin Monetary Union.

Spain's adoption of the peseta, in 1869, and its joining the Latin Monetary Union meant the effective end of the last vestiges of the Spanish dollar in Spain itself. However, the five-peseta coin (or duro) was slightly smaller and lighter but was also of high-purity (90%) silver.

In the 1990s, commemorative 2,000-peseta coins were minted, similar in size and weight to the dollar.

Mexico

Following independence in 1821, Mexican coinage of silver reales and gold escudos followed that of Spanish lines until decimalization and the introduction of the peso, worth eight reales, or 100 centavos. It continued to be minted to Spanish standards throughout the 19th century, with the peso at 27.07 g of 0.9028 fine silver, and the escudo at 3.383 g of 0.875 fine gold. The Mexican peso, or eight-real coin, continued to be a popular international trading coin throughout the 19th century.

After 1918, the peso was reduced in size and fineness, with further reductions in the 1940s and 1950s. Coins of two- (1921), five- (1947), and ten-peso (1955) denominations were also minted during the same period, with sizes and fineness similar to the old peso.

Australia

After the colony of New South Wales was founded in Australia in 1788, it ran into the problem of a lack of coinage, particularly since trading vessels took coins out of the colony in exchange for their cargo. In 1813, Governor Lachlan Macquarie made creative use of £10,000 in Spanish dollars sent by the British government. To make it difficult to take the coins out of the colony, and to double their number, the centres of the coins were punched out. The punched centre, known as the "dump", was valued at 15 pence, and the outer rim, known as the "holey dollar", was worth five shillings. This was indicated by overstamping the two new coins. The obverse of the holey dollar was stamped the words "New South Wales" and the date, 1813, and the reverse with the words "five shillings". The obverse of the dump was stamped with a crown, the words "New South Wales" and the date, 1813, and the reverse with the words "fifteen pence". The mutilated coins became the first official currency produced specifically for circulation in Australia. The expedient was relatively short-lived. The British Parliament passed the Sterling Silver Money Act in 1825, which made British coins the only recognised form of currency and ended any legitimate use of the holey dollar and dump in the Australian colonies.

United States

The Coinage Act of 1792 created the United States Mint and initially defined the United States dollar at par with the Spanish dollar due to its international reputation:

The Coinage Act of 1792 specified that the U.S. dollar would contain 371.25 grains (24.057 g) pure or 416 grains (26.96 g) standard silver. This specification was based on the average weight of a random selection of worn Spanish dollars which Alexander Hamilton ordered to be weighed at the Treasury. Initially this dollar was comparable to the 371–373 grains found in circulating Spanish dollars and aided in its exportation overseas. The restoration of the old 0.9028 fineness in the Mexican peso after 1821, however, increased the latter's silver content to 24.44 g and reduced the export demand for U.S. dollars.

Before the American Revolution, owing to British mercantilist policies, there was a chronic shortage of British currency in Britain's colonies. Trade was often conducted with Spanish dollars that had been obtained through illicit trade with the West Indies. Spanish coinage was legal tender in the United States until the Coinage Act of 1857 discontinued the practice. The pricing of equities on U.S. stock exchanges in -dollar denominations persisted until the New York Stock Exchange converted first to pricing in sixteenths of a dollar on 24 June 1997, and then in 2001 to decimal pricing.

Africa

In Egypt, Spanish dollars with the pillars of Hercules on the back had amuletic and magical significance. These pillars were interpreted as cannons by Egyptians, which are made of iron. Iron is useful in defending against jinn, leading to the magical association.

Asia

The first Chinese yuan coins had the same specification as a Spanish dollar, leading to a continuing equivalence in some respects between the names "yuan" and "dollar" in the Chinese language. Other currencies also derived from the dollar include the Japanese yen, Korean won, Philippine peso, Malaysian ringgit, French Indochinese piastre, etc. since it was widely traded across the Far East in the East Indies and East Asia.

Contemporary names used for Spanish dollars in Qing dynasty China include běnyáng (本洋), shuāngzhù (雙柱), zhùyáng (柱洋), fóyáng (佛洋), fótóu (佛頭), fóyín (佛銀), and fótóuyín (佛頭銀). The "fó" element in those Chinese names referred to the King of Spain in those coins, as his face resembled that of images of the Buddha (佛 in Chinese); and the "zhù" part of those names referred to the two pillars in the Spanish coat of arms.

Spanish dollars [[countermark]]ed in other countries

File:CeilanI.jpg|Sri Lanka File:Birmania.jpg|Burma File:Arabia Saudí.jpg|Saudi Arabia File:Tailandia.jpg|Thailand File:Zanzíbar.jpg|Zanzibar File:Bahrein.jpg|Bahrain File:Sudán.jpg|Sudan File:India portuguesa.jpg|India File:Timormon.jpg|Timor File:Ras al Jaima.jpg|United Arab Emirates

Fiction

In modern pop culture and fiction, pieces of eight are most often associated with the popular notion of pirates.

• In Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Long John Silver's parrot has learned to cry out "Pieces of eight!" This use tied the coin (and parrots) to fictional depictions of pirates. Deriving from the wide popularity of this book, "pieces of eight" is sometimes used to mean "money" or "a lot of money", regardless of specific denomination, and also as a synonym for treasure in general.
• In the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End the Pirate Lords must meet together by presenting the "Nine Pieces of Eight", since these Pieces were used to seal the goddess Calypso in her human form by the first Brethren Court. The ninth "piece of eight" hangs off Jack Sparrow's bandana in the early films, up to its destruction in this film.
• In Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, the antagonist, Reacher Gilt (who physically resembles a stereotypical pirate), has a cockatoo named Alphonse which has been trained to say "Twelve and half percent!", that is to say a single piece of eight.

References

References

1. "Dissemination of Hispanic-American coinage". Encyclopædia Britannica.
2. Woodcock, Ray. (1 May 2009). "Globalization from Genesis to Geneva: A Confluence of Humanity". Trafford Publishing.
3. Thomas J. Osborne. (29 November 2012). "Pacific Eldorado: A History of Greater California". John Wiley & Sons.
4. "Origin and history of the world dollar and dollar sign".
5. Babones, Salvatore. (30 April 2017). "'The Silver Way' Explains How the Old Mexican Dollar Changed the World".
6. (1996). "Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates". Random House.
7. National Geographic. June 2002. p. 1. ''Ask Us''.
8. {{cite OED. dollar. 7936244852
9. "Lion Dollar - Introduction".
10. ''Oxford English Dictionary'', entry on "dollar", definition 2 ("The English name for the peso or piece of eight (i.e. eight {{lang. es. reales), formerly current in Spain and the Spanish American colonies").
11. (1898). "The Spanish dollar and the colonial shilling, pp 616-617: 24.038g fine / 27.07g = 0.89". The American Historical Review.
12. "National Museum of Australia - Holey dollar".
13. "History: Fact Sheet 1". Australian Government.
14. [[Murray Rothbard. Rothbard, Murray]], [http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard260.html Commodity Money in Colonial America] {{Webarchive. link. (18 June 2015 , ''[[LewRockwell.com]]'')
15. (1898). "The Spanish Dollar and the Colonial Shilling". The American Historical Review.
16. Van Roode, Sigrid M.. "Silver of the Possessed: Jewellry in the Egyptian zar".
17. Babones, Salvatore. (April 30, 2017). "'The Silver Way' Explains How the Old Mexican Dollar Changed the World".
18. (1900). "Report of the Philippine commission to the President, January 31, 1900, page 142-149, Part IX: The Currency".
19. [[Charles C. Mann]]. (2011). "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created". Random House Digital.
20. Brook, Timothy. (1998). "The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China". University of California Press.
21. (16 February 2018). "Chinese Guides for identifying Silver Dollars and Other Coins, 19th Century".
22. Pratchett, Terry. (2004). "Going Postal". Doubleday.