Gold Doubloons, Pistoles and Silver Spanish Dollars
Gold Doubloons and Silver Spanish Dollars lasted in the American currency for a long, long time. Spanish coin was not outlawed in the United States until 1857.
Somewhere in the ground in Winchester sit gold coins known as Doubloons or Pistoles.
Doubloons are Pistoles. Pistoles are Doubloons.
Both are 2 escudos.
A Doubloon = 2 escudos. So does a Pistole.
A Pistole or Doubloon meant 4 dollars, 2 escudos.
But it gets worse.
English nomenclature was confusing, though, since the $8 "double pistole" was the doubloon in English usage, while the $16 "quadruple pistole" was the doubloon in American colonial usage. This was disambiguated in references by calling the $4 the common doubloon or simply doubloon, the $8 the doubloon of four (escudos), and the $16 the doubloon of eight.[5]Spanish America did the same as per es:doblón. - Wikipedia
That's our lead story.
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Compiled and Authored by Jim Moyer 4/1/2022, updated 4/18/2022, 4/19/2022, 12/30/2024
Table of Contents
Spanish coin is the World's Reserve Currency
We show you this picture of how involved Spain was in the French and Indian War.
After the 1763 Paris Peace Treaty ending the war, that area called Louisiana was switched over to Spain.
Daniel Boone moved into that territory, He sure worked with doubloons and dollars, when he was hired as a Spanish Syndic, a Spanish judge and jury in one person.
And we show you how big Spain was during the Rev War too.
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We show you this picture because a lot of Spanish coin was used in the American Colonies and it was used well into the 1850s. Just look at the Moby Dick story based on the Essex of 1820 destroyed by a Sperm Whale.
That's why we show you how big Spain was during the Rev War too.
We got our Cents from Centavos, meaning there were a hundred to a Spanish Dollar.
And of course one dollar went for one Buck Skin.
"Real" comes from the Spanish word Real, meaning Royal.
Read about the Alamo during the French and Indian War and of the silver mines and gold mines.
And Virginia has a Pistoles Controversy in the 1750s. Look at that story further below.
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One Royal
On the obverse is the bust of Charles IV, shown as IIII per typical Spanish usage at the time.
The legend is Latin: "Carolus (Charles) IIII Dei Gratia (By the Grace of God)".
The legend continues onto the reverse as "Hispan Et Ind R" (Spain and the Indies, Rex).
The obverse and reverse legends together say "Charles IV by Grace of God King of Spain and the Indies".
The Mexico City mint mark is the M with the small O atop it.
The F and M are probably assayers initials, typical of Spanish colonial coinage.
The two pillars are the Pillars of Hercules which symbolize the Straits of Gibralter.
The left ribbon says "PLUS" and the right ribbon says "ULTRA".
Together these say "more beyond".
The symbolism is stating that Spain lays claim to all lands west of the Straits of Gibralter and this symbolism dates to the earliest coinage struck in Spain for the New World in about 1505 and is used on much of the cob and milled coinage struck in the New World.
The shield shows the heraldic devices of lions (Leon) and Castles (Castile).
(Cited from: https://www.cointalk.com/threads/1790-charles-iv-1-2-reale.407108/)
On the obverse on its left side you can see "8 R" -- meaning 8 reals or 8 royals.
The back of that coin can be seen more clearly on the Spanish flag.
The two pillars on both sides are the Two Pillars of Hercules, which is what the Rock of Gibraltar and the Morrocco mountain is called at the interection of the Meditteranean and Atlantic.
Wrapped around the left pillar is PLVS or Plus, meaning "more."
Wrapped around the right pillar is VLTRA or Ultra, meaning "beyond.
Taken together, the words speak of the Spanish Empire at the gates of the Pillar of Hercules leading to MORE and BEYOND.
Even the wrapping of the scroll around the two pillars is the genesis of the Dollar sign, according to some sources.
The shield on the flag is different from the coin.
It still retains the Lion (Leon) and the Castle (Castile) representing to main regions of a united Spain. See more on the Sheild.
Below is one Real or one Royal. On the Reverse, you can see 1 R for one royal.
Mike Robinson's find in Frederick County Virginia
Dollar Sign Origin
Earlier history of the symbol
It is still uncertain, however, how the dollar sign came to represent the Spanish American peso. There are currently several competing hypotheses:
The most widely accepted theory holds that the sign grew out of the Spanish and Spanish American scribal abbreviation "ps" for pesos. A study of late 18th- and early 19th-century manuscripts shows that the s gradually came to be written over the p, developing into a close equivalent to the "$" mark.[8][9][10][11][12] Oliver Pollock, a wealthy Irish trader and early supporter of the American Revolution, used the abbreviation "ps", sometimes run together in a way that almost exactly resembled the dollar sign, in a letter dated 1778.[6][13] There are documents showing the common use of the two-stroke version in Portugal already by 1775.[14]
Another hypothesis derives the sign from a depiction of the Pillars of Hercules, a classical symbol for two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, with a ribbon wrapped around each pillar (or both pillars) in the form of an "S". This device is a support element of the Spanish coat of arms, and appeared on the most common real de ocho coins circulating at the time in the Americas and Europe; namely, those minted at the Potosí mint in Bolivia, which operated from 1573 to 1825.[15][10] Indeed, one of the names used for Spanish dollars in Qing Dynasty China was 雙柱; Shuāngzhù; 'double-pillar'.[16]
A variant of the above theory claims that the sign comes from the mark of the mint at Potosí, where a large portion of the Spanish Empire's silver was mined. A feature on these coins were the letters "P T S I" superimposed. The core of this monogram is a (single-stroked) "$" sign.[17]
Yet another hypothesis notes that the English word "dollar" for the Spanish piece of eight originally came (through Dutch daalder) from Joachimsthaler or thaler, a similar large German silver coin that was widely used in Europe. It is therefore conjectured that the dollar sign derived from a symbol consisting of a superimposing S and I or J that was used to denote the German silver coin. Such symbol appears in the 1686 edition of An Introduction to Merchants' Accounts by John Collins.[18] Alternatively, the symbol could have come from a snake and cross emblem on the thaler coins.[6]
Virginia Pistole Fee Controversy
Dinwiddie finding that the regulations governing the patenting of lands were but little regarded, and that a practice had long prevailed of securing the possession and use of lands by warrants of survey, without the entering of patents,' by which more than a million of acres were unpatented, and the royal revenue from the Quit-rents seriously defrauded — with the advice of the Council, in an endeavor to correct the abuse, and by the exaction of a fee of a pistole on every patent issued, incurred yet greater animosity.
The House of Burgesses unavailingly remonstrated against this exercise of the royal prerogative, and, in 1754, sent Peyton Randolph, then Attorney- General of the colony,) to England, as its agent, with a salary of ;^2,5og, with a petition to the King for relief from the fee. The decision of the Board of Trade was virtually in favor of Governor Dinwiddie, though their instructions were at first singularly indefinite.
Page X of Introduction to Dinwiddie Papers published by the Virginial Historical Society
The Privy Council upheld the fee and Dinwiddie’s right to establish it, but imposed certain restrictions on the fee to conciliate the House of Burgesses—a compromise that was accepted by the opposing parties but did not address the constitutional issue of whether colonial legislatures had the right to defeat local taxes proposed by the British government.
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Paper Money
Franklin is for that Crazy Worthless Paper Money Idea.
Ben Franklin champions this idea in 1729, three years before George Washington was born.
Ben Franklin publishes his advocacy of Paper Money:
The Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency
A Modest Enquiry into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper-Currency. Philadelphia: Printed and Sold at the New Printing-Office, near the Market. 1729. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania)
Ben Franklin did not invent this idea.
Founders Online gives you a little taste of this idea.
Pennsylvania’s first experience with paper currency came in 1723 with the passage of two acts which provided for issues of bills of credit totaling £45,000. Except for £7,500 allocated to governmental agencies for public expenditure, the new currency was to be loaned to private individuals at 5 per cent interest for specified terms of years on the security of real-estate mortgages. The borrowers were to repay the principal in equal annual installments and the bills of credit received in payment were to be canceled and destroyed. The last of the loans would be repaid and the last bills of credit “sunk” in 1736. But in 1726, when almost £5,000 of the paper money had been retired, complaint about the shrinking currency induced the Assembly to halt the further destruction of the bills and to authorize instead their reissue on new mortgage loans.
During the next few years paper currency became a major issue. Many believed the acts of 1723 and 1726 had greatly promoted the prosperity of Pennsylvania; others, including the more conservative inhabitants, the proprietors in England, and officials of the British government, feared inflation and serious depreciation of the paper money such as had already taken place in New England and South Carolina.
Go ahead and peek at this treasure trove:
Afterword.
A response to the meme below:
There's always Promissory Notes.
Banks cannot control the trading of those. Our Founding Fathers lived on Promissory Notes . . .
And if bitcoin remains de-centralized, despite its ledger, you can own its keys on a piece of paper and only upload those keys when you want to make a quickie transaction, far faster than a wire.
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PROMISSORY NOTES
Think about those Promissory Notes everyone was trading and exchanging around?
Those Promissory Notes?
Just a fancy word for promise to pay. Like an I.O.U.
And they traded them instead of paying them.
Like Money.
Money is simply a promise to pay. And instead of paying them you trade them.
Money is just debt traded around.
Money is just debt exchanged for other debt, which is like a Promissory Note, which is like Money.
Alexander Hamilton proposed buying all the debt of the colonies and selling that debt.
Debt instruments contain a revenue stream.
Brilliant idea.
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Spanish Flag
The different parts of this flag tell you that Spain like the 50 states contains a number of separate regions unified to make Spain.
King Charles III
See a story of the previous Spanish King Charles III
Some Research Notes and Links
Rare document of George Washington to go up for auction in York
by: Lauren Rude Posted: Jun 24, 2021 / 06:31 PM EDT Updated: Jun 24, 2021 / 06:32 PM EDT
YORK, Pa. (WHTM) — A rare document of former President George Washington’s will go up for auction for the first time ever in York.
Hakes Auction House has a promissory note from 1767 signed by Washington for the purchase of four slaves. One of those slaves, William Lee, eventually became Washington’s personal valet.
The story foes that they became so close, Washington came to detest slavery.
ADVERTISING
“I think you can appreciate this piece because William Lee had such an impact on building the Republic as we know it now. Slave or not,” Scott Mussel, Americana specialist at Hakes Auction said.
There is no reserve or estimated value to the document. The auction begins Tuesday, June 29, and includes thousands of historical, political and pop culture items.
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