Initially, "$" - sign is a dollar and peso

Eight countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Philippines and Uruguay) moneys called the peso h4> The history of the word "dollar "I began in the XVI-th century in the Czech Republic. Europe was the first time in a long time became the richest silver. For centuries, Europeans spend gold and silver to buy silk, spices and other exotic luxury, bringing stocks of precious metals in the Old World order depleted. At the beginning of XVI-century building in the Tyrol, Saxony (now - an area of ​​Austria and Germany) and Bohemia (the modern Czech Republic) showed a fairly large deposits of silver ore and silver coins began to actively displace gold from circulation. Bohemian yohimstalery become a benchmark in the minting of silver coins and soon shorthand word "Thaler" has called any silver currency. Every nation alter the Czech term in its own way - for example, the Dutch pronounced it as "Daalder," Slovenia "thaler" was "SIT" and the British turned it into ... "dollar».

When Spain began to actively explore the wealth of the New World, European deposits of precious metals lost their former importance, for the next few hundred years, "Silver center" of the world has moved to Bolivia, Peru and Mexico. Real, they are called "Spanish dollars" or «peso de ocho» (eng. «Piece of eight» - the eighth part, "ounces" real cost every 1/8 pound), minted from "Indian" silver flooded Europe and gradually pushed out of the market thalers, becoming the main international currency. To understand how great was the influence of money on the Spanish culture and economy of the time, pay attention to the names of some of today's national currencies.



in eight countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Philippines and Uruguay) banknotes are called pesos. Chinese yuan and Japanese yen were named in honor of the Spanish form of coins (the whale. "Yuan" - round) - Japan and China have taken them as a basis for the creation of their money. SAR, which is calculated in the Saudi and Qatari rials are also required by their names Spanish realities. And finally, most importantly - when the young state United States worried about the coinage of their own money, they were called "dollar", the Spanish money then widely used in calculations in the country.

How does the «S wand" has become a symbol of the American dollar? As already mentioned, the Spanish Peso long been the world's dominant currency and traders constantly had to write his name in the financial documents. Gradually it came to mean for the convenience of the letters «Ps», and later all reduced to «S» with a vertical bar representing a stylized «P». The Americans, along with the name borrowed from the peso and its symbol, over time, their dollars have become much more popular than the Spanish currency and now the sign "$" everyone associated with the United States, although for example, Mexican and Cuban peso is still designated in exactly the same symbol.

via observationdeck.io9.com/why-is-the-dollar-sign-a-letter-s-1683940575