The Spanish dollar or peso (literally, "weight") is a silver coin that was minted in the Spanish Empire after a Spanish currency reform in 1497. Peso is the name of the currency of various countries: Argentina: Argentine peso (ISO 4217: ARS) Chile: Chilean peso (CLP) Colombia: Colombian peso (COP) Cuba: Cuban peso (CUP) Dominican Republic: Dominican peso (DOP) Mexico: Mexican peso (MXN, previously MXP) Philippines: Philippine peso (PHP) Uruguay: Uruguayan peso (UYU) In Spanish peso... General Name, Symbol, Number silver, Ag, 47 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 5, d Appearance lustrous white metal Atomic mass 107. ... Spain created the earliest of global empires. ... 1497 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Thanks to the vast silver deposits that were found in Mexico (for example, at Taxco, Guerrero, and Zacatecas) and, Potosí in modern-day Bolivia, and to silver from Spain's possessions throughout the Americas, mints in Mexico and Peru also began to strike the coin. Categories: Stub | Cities in Guerrero ... World map showing the Americas The Americas commonly refers to the landmass in the Western Hemisphere consisting of the continents of North America, Central America and South America with their associated islands and regions. ...

Millions of Spanish dollars 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 U.S. Civil War the United States government first issued paper money backed by Spanish dollars. This page is about the dollar currency. ... A coin is usually a piece of hard material, generally metal and usually in the shape of a disc, which is issued by a government to be used as a form of money. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Combatants United States of America Confederate States of America Commanders Abraham Lincoln Ulysses S. Grant Jefferson Davis Robert E. Lee Strength 1,556,678 1,064,200 Casualties KIA: 110,100 Total dead: 359,500 Wounded: 275,200 KIA: 74,500 Total dead: 198,500 Wounded: 137,000+  {{{notes}}} The... The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States. ...

The coin is roughly equivalent to the silver thaler issued in Bohemia and elsewhere since 1517. The German name "thaler" (pronounced "tahl-er" — and "dahler" in Low German) became dollar in French and English. Examples of German and Austrian thalers compared to a US quarter piece The Thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. ... Bohemia. ... Low German (also called Plattdeutsch, Plattdüütsch or Low Saxon) is a name for the regional language varieties of the Low Germanic languages spoken mainly in northern Germany, southern Denmark and eastern Netherlands. ...

The peso nominally weighed 550.209 Spanish grains, which is 423.900 troy/avoirdupois grains (0.883125 troy ounce or 27.468 grams), .93055 fine: so contained 0.821791 troy ounce (25.560 grams) fine silver. Its weight and purity varied significantly between mints and over the centuries. A grain is a unit of mass equal to 0. ... Troy weight is a system of units of mass customarily used for precious metals and gemstones. ...

The peso had a nominal value of eight 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 in the United States. The Real was a unit of currency in Spain for several centuries. ... The bit is a unit of money worth 1/8 of a Spanish dollar. ...

Prior to the American Revolution there was, due to English mercantilist policies, a chronic shortage of English currency in its colonies. Trade was often conducted using Spanish dollars. The pricing of equities on U.S. stock exchanges in 1/8 dollar denominations persisted until the New York Stock Exchange converted to pricing in sixteenths of a dollar on June 24, 1997, to be followed shortly after by decimal pricing. The American Revolution ended two centuries of British rule for most of the North American colonies and created the modern United States of America. ... A painting of a French seaport from 1638, at the height of mercantilism. ... New York Stock Exchange (June 2003) The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), also nicknamed the Big Board, is the largest stock exchange in the world (by dollar volume) and second largest by number of listings. ... June 24 is the 175th day of the year (176th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 190 days remaining. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII in Roman) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Long tied to the lore of piracy, "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. The Manila Galleon transported Mexican silver to Manila, where it would be exchanged for Chinese goods, since silver was the only foreign commodity China would take. In oriental trade, Spanish dollars were often stamped with chinese characters known as "chop marks" which indicate that that particular coin had been assayed by a well-known merchant and determined genuine. This article is about sea pirates. ... The Manila Galleons were Spanish galleons that sailed once or twice per year across the Pacific Ocean between Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in New Spain (now Mexico). ... Manilas President Manuel Roxas Boulevard also known as the Baywalk Manila (Filipino: Maynila) is the capital of the Philippines. ...

Lives on in the Chinese yan

In China, the base unit of the official currency Renminbi is called "yuan" (元 or 圆 , with a symbol ¥). The word "yuan" also means round object, but its original meaning is the Spanish dollar. Indigenous coins minted in China were always called "Chin" (錢). The word "Yuan" 圆 referred specifically to the Spanish dollars widely circulated in China in the late 19th century, when they were properly known as 銀圆 (pronounced as "Yin Yuan" ), meaning "silver rounds". Coins minted in Hong Kong in 1866 also carried the same amount of silver as the Spanish dollar and were called "Hong Kong One Dollar" 香港壹圓. When China adopted its first national currency in 1914, the base unit was also called 圆, with the pinyin "Yuan". One meaning of it was still "dollar" , as witness the fact that a "yuan" at that time contained exactly the same amount of silver as a Spanish dollar. Hanyu pinyin (Simplified Chinese: 汉语拼音; Traditional Chinese: 漢語拼音; Hanyu Pinyin: , lit. ...

In fiction

• In Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, pirates' parrots are commonly represented as being trained to cry out, "Pieces of eight!"
• In the massively multiplayer online game Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates pieces of eight are special currency.
• In the Amiga and Pc point-and-click pirate game series, Monkey Island, the traded currency is the piece of eight.

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850 – December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer. ... Treasure Island. ... Genera A parrot is a bird belonging to the family Psittacidae. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. ... The original Amiga (1985) The Amiga is a family of home/personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation as an advanced game console. ... pc may mean: parsec, an astronomical unit of distance (from parallax-second) Percent or per cent pC may mean: picocoulomb, an SI unit of electric charge equal to 10-12 coulomb PC may mean: // Codification Pacific Islands Trust Territory: ISO 3166 country code (obsolete since 1986; was split into Federated... The Secret of Monkey Island, CD version. ...

External link

• The Spanish dollar and the colonial shilling