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The Spanish dollar or peso (literally, "heavy") is a silver coin which was minted in Spain after a Spanish currency reform in 1497.Thanks to the vast silver deposits that were found in Mexico (for example, at Taxco and Zacatecas), and to silver looted from Spain's possessions throughout the Americas, mints in Mexico and Peru also began to strike the coin.
Millions of pesos were minted over the course of several centuries.
They were among the most widely circulating coins of the colonial period in the Americas, and were still in use in North America and in South-East Asia in the 19th century.
They had a value of one dollar when circulating in the United States.
During the US Civil War the US Government first issued paper money backed by Spanish dollars.
The coin is roughly equivalent to the silver thaler issued in BohemiaBohemia Cechy in Czech, Bohmen in German) is an historical region in central Europe, occupying the western and middle thirds of the Czech Republic. With an area of 52,750 sq. 25 million of the country's 10. 3 million inabitants, Bohemia is bounded by Germ and elsewhere since 1517.
The GermanGerman (called Deutsch in German in which germanisch refers to prechristian times), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and one of the world's major languages. It is the language with the most native speakers in the European Union. name "thaler" was adopted in EnglishThe English language is a West Germanic language, originating from England. It is the third most common "first" language (native speakers), with around 402 million people in 2002. English has lingua franca status in many parts of the world, due to the mil as " dollarAlternate uses: Dollar (disambiguation The dollar is the name of the official currency in several countries, dependencies and other regions (see list below). It is represented by the symbol . The name is related to the historic currencies Tolar in Bohemia", referring to all such coins.
The peso nominally weighed 550.209 Spanish grains, which is 423.900 troy grains or 27.468 metric grams, .93055 fine: so contained 25.560 grams fine silver.
Its weight and purity varied significantly between mints and over the centuries.
The peso had a nominal value of 8 reales ("royals").
The coins were often physically cut into eight "bits", or sometimes four quarters, to make smaller change.
This is the origin of the colloquial name "pieces of eight" for the coin, and of "quarter" and "two bits" for twenty five cents.
Long tied to the lore of piracyThis article is about sea pirates. For other uses see Pirate (disambiguation A pirate is one who robs or plunders at sea without a commission from a recognised sovereign nation. Pirates usually target other ships, but have also attacked targets on shore., "pieces of eight" were manufactured in the Americas and transported in bulk back to Spain (to pay for wars and various other things), making them a very tempting target for seagoing pirates.
Some pirates were among the richest people in the world.
In fictionThree Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. Fiction is the term used to describe works of the imagination. This is in contrast to non-fiction, which, such as Robert Louis StevensonRobert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson ( November 13, 1850- December 3, 1894), was a novelist, poet, and travel writer. Life Stevenson was born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Thomas Stevenson, a successful engineer, and Margar's Treasure IslandTreasure Island is a novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in one volume in 1883, though it had previously been serialised in a children's magazine; the original title was The Sea Cook or Treasure Island''. An adventure tale originally intended, pirates' parrots are commonly represented as being trained to cry out, "Pieces of eight!"
