The colonial British used a Spanish Pieces of Eight
Mike Robinson, author of Winchester Tales recently found in Frederick County Virginia a 1797 Spanish coin, minted in Mexico. These and other international coins were ruled non-legal in 1857.
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Mike Robinson's find inspired me to make a little image of his coin similar to the Spanish flag.
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His find is a 1 Real (pronounced REEE AL), meaning Royal, meaning 1/8 of a dollar. An 8 piece of Eight, as in "8 reales" (e always added before an s in spanish) was a Spanish dollar which would buy you a buck as in buckskin.
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Only the coat of arms on the reverse of the coin has changed a little. The new coat of arms reflects all the semi-autonomous regions that unified to make modern Spain.
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Those two pillars? They're the Pillars of Hercules, two mountains, guarding the Strait of Gibraltar to the wider world of the Spanish Empire and this kind of world reserve currency, similar to the US dollar today.
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And the left pillar has PLVS or PLUS (meaning "more" wrapped around it. And the right pillar has VLTRA or ULTRA (meaning "beyond). Taken together, those 2 pillar of Hercules mean MORE BEYOND, the straits of Gibraltar being a gateway to the world wide Spanish Empire.
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"1⁄8-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." - wikipedia.
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This coin is part of the origin of the Dollar Sign.
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Compiled by Jim Moyer researched in 2020, updated 12/30/2024, updated 12/31/2024
And why not use IV instead of IIII ?
Although that coin indicates King Charles IV the profile is really that of the previous Charles III.
They just added another Roman numeral and kept the previous King's profile.
1788–1808 Charles IV
Because of problems in supplying new dies, an edict of December 24, 1788 authorized the American mints to continue using the dies with the portrait of Charles III, while changing the name to Charles IIII by adding another Roman numeral I. New dies finally arrived in 1791. The 8 reales was struck at Potosí in 1789 and 1790 with the bust of Charles III but the name altered to "IV", then with the new portrait of Charles IV in 1791. The first cuarto (1/4 real) was struck at Mexico City in 1794.
This entry in wikipedia does not mention the coin showing above which is 1 real, not the 8 reales as referred to in that wikipedia entry.
Always more:
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