With very few exceptions, the coins circulating in the Colonies until the Revolution were unauthorized private issues or old worn coppers no longer acceptable in England or Ireland. Silver was rare (consisting mainly of Spanish and Mexican dollars) and gold almost nonexistent. Copper was then a ...
The dollar sign is also used for several currencies that use different names, including the Brazilian real, the Mexican peso, the Nicaraguan córdoba, and the Macanese pataca. The dollar sign takes as its base the form of the capital letter S. A vertical line bisects the S. Less commonly...
heavy metal coins were the primary form of money. So, when a merchant/person wanted to send their money over long distances, they couldn’t do it easily. To solve this, they invented “Flying Money.” Here, the merchant can deposit their money in one place, get a receipt called “Flyin...
On other occasions the coins had merely fiduciary value—that is, no intrinsic value at all—as was the case with the numerous coinages of the Mexican patriot José María Morelos (1765–1815), who produced eight-real pieces in copper. Only in Mexico were there mints of any importance, ...