Dollar
Dollar is the name of more than 25
Economies that use a "dollar"
Other countries that use "United States dollar"
Country or territory | Established | Preceding currency |
---|---|---|
East Timor | 2002 | Indonesian rupiah |
Ecuador | 2001 | Ecuadorian sucre |
El Salvador | 2001 | Salvadoran colón |
Marshall Islands | ||
Federated States of Micronesia | ||
Palau |
Other territories that use a "dollar"
Territory | Currency |
---|---|
Anguilla | Eastern Caribbean dollar |
Bonaire (Netherlands) | US dollar |
British Indian Ocean Territory | US dollar (alongside the pound sterling) |
British Virgin Islands | US dollar |
Montserrat | Eastern Caribbean dollar |
Saba (Netherlands) | US dollar |
Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France) | Canadian dollar (alongside the euro) |
Sint Eustatius (Netherlands) | US dollar |
Turks and Caicos Islands | US dollar |
Countries unofficially accepting "dollars"
Country | Currency |
---|---|
Afghanistan | US dollar |
Argentina | |
Bolivia | |
Cambodia | |
Cuba[1][2][3][4][5] | |
Guatemala[6] | |
Lebanon | |
Macau | Hong Kong dollar |
Maldives | US dollar |
Myanmar | |
North Korea[7] | |
Panama[8] | |
Paraguay | |
Peru | |
Philippines | |
Uruguay | |
Venezuela |
Countries and regions that have previously used a "dollar" currency
- Confederate States of America: The Confederate States dollar issued from March 1861 to 1865
- Ethiopia: The name "Ethiopian dollar" was used in the English text on the birr banknotes before the Derg takeover in 1974.
- Malaysia: the Malaysian ringgit used to be called the "Malaysian Dollar". The surrounding territories (that is, Malaya, British North Borneo, Sarawak, Brunei, and Singapore) used several varieties of dollars (for example, Straits dollar, Malayan dollar, Sarawak dollar, British North Borneo dollar; Malaya and British Borneo dollar) before Malaya, British North Borneo, Sarawak, Singapore and Brunei gained their independence from the United Kingdom. See also for complete list of currencies.
- Sierra Leone: The Sierra Leonean dollar was used from 1791 to 1805. It was subdivided into 100 cents and was issued by the Sierra Leone Company. The dollar was pegged to sterling at a rate of 1 dollar = 4 shillings 2 pence.
- Spain: the Spanish dollar was used from 1497 to 1868. It is closely related to the dollars (Spanish dollar was used in the US until 1857) and euros used today.[clarification needed]
- Sri Lanka; the Ceylonese rixdollar was a currency used in British Ceylon in the early 19th Century.
- Rhodesia: the Rhodesian dollar replaced the Rhodesian pound in 1970 and it was used until Zimbabwe came into being in 1980.
- Republic of Texas: the Texas dollar was issued between January 1839 and September 1840.
History
Etymology
On 15 January 1520, the
This name found its way into other languages, for example:[12]
- German — Thaler (or Taler)
- Czech, Slovak and Slovenian — tolar
- Slovak — toliar
- Croatian — talir
- Polish — talar
- Low German— daler
- Dutch — rijksdaalder (or daler, pronounced "dollar")
- Danish and Norwegian — rigsdaler
- Latvian — dālderis
- Swedish — riksdaler
- Spanish — dólar (or real de a ocho or peso duro)
- Hungarian — tallér
- Ethiopian— talari (ታላሪ)
- English — dollar
In contrast to other languages which adopted the second part of word joachimsthaler, the first part found its way into Russian language and became efimok , yefimok (ефимок).[13]
The predecessor of the Joachimsthaler was the Guldengroschen or Guldiner which was a large silver coin originally minted in Tirol in 1486, but which was introduced into the Duchy of Saxony in 1500. The King of Bohemia wanted a similar silver coin which then became the Joachimsthaler.
Europe and colonial North America
The Joachimsthaler of the 16th century was succeeded by the longer-lived
For the English North American colonists, however, the Spanish peso or "piece of eight" has always held first place, and this coin was also called the "dollar" as early as 1581.
Origins of the dollar sign
The sign is first attested in business correspondence in the 1770s as a scribal abbreviation "ps", referring to the Spanish American peso,[20][21] that is, the "Spanish dollar" as it was known in British North America. These late 18th- and early 19th-century manuscripts show that the s gradually came to be written over the p developing a close equivalent to the "$" mark, and this new symbol was retained to refer to the American dollar as well, once this currency was adopted in 1785 by the United States.[22][23][24][25][26]
Adoption by the United States
By the time of the American Revolution, the Spanish dólar gained significance because they backed paper money authorized by the individual colonies and the Continental Congress.[16] Because Britain deliberately withheld hard currency from the American colonies, virtually all the non-token coinage in circulation was Spanish (and to a much lesser extent French and Dutch) silver, obtained via illegal but widespread commerce with the West Indies. Common in the Thirteen Colonies, Spanish dólar were even legal tender in one colony, Virginia.
On 2 April 1792, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton reported to Congress the precise amount of silver found in Spanish dollar coins in common use in the states. As a result, the United States dollar was defined[27] as a unit of pure silver weighing 371 4/16th grains (24.057 grams), or 416 grains of standard silver (standard silver being defined as 371.25/416 in silver, and balance in alloy).[28] It was specified that the "money of account" of the United States should be expressed in those same "dollars" or parts thereof. Additionally, all lesser-denomination coins were defined as percentages of the dollar coin, such that a half-dollar was to contain half as much silver as a dollar, quarter-dollars would contain one-fourth as much, and so on.
In an act passed in January 1837, the dollar's weight was reduced to 412.5 grains and alloy at 90% silver, resulting in the same fine silver content of 371.25 grains. On 21 February 1853, the quantity of silver in the lesser coins was reduced, with the effect that their denominations no longer represented their silver content relative to dollar coins.
Various acts have subsequently been passed affecting the amount and type of metal in U.S. coins, so that today there is no legal definition of the term "dollar" to be found in U.S. statute.[29][30][31] Currently the closest thing[clarification needed] to a definition is found in United States Code Title 31, Section 5116, paragraph b, subsection 2: "The Secretary [of the Treasury] shall sell silver under conditions the Secretary considers appropriate for at least $1.292929292 a fine troy ounce."
Silver was mostly removed from U.S. coinage by 1965 and the dollar became a free-floating fiat money without a commodity backing defined in terms of real gold or silver. The US Mint continues to make silver $1-denomination coins, but these are not intended for general circulation.
Relationship to the troy pound
The quantity of silver chosen in 1792 to correspond to one dollar, namely, 371.25 grains of pure silver, is very close to the
That these three ratios are all approximately equal has some interesting consequences. Let the gold to silver ratio be exactly 15.5. Then a pennyweight of gold, that is 24 grains of gold, is nearly equal in value to a dollar of silver (1 dwt of gold = $1.002 of silver). Second, a dollar of gold is nearly equal in value to a pound of silver ($1 of gold = 5754 3/8 grains of silver = 0.999 Lb of silver). Third, the number of grains in a dollar (371.25) roughly equals the number of grams in a troy pound (373.24).
Usage in the United Kingdom
There are two quotes in the plays of
In 1804, a British five-
Usage elsewhere
Chinese demand for silver in the 19th and early 20th centuries led several countries, notably the United Kingdom, United States and Japan, to mint trade dollars, which were often of slightly different weights from comparable domestic coinage. Silver dollars reaching China (whether Spanish, trade, or other) were often stamped with Chinese characters known as "chop marks", which indicated that that particular coin had been assayed by a well-known merchant and deemed genuine.
Other national currencies called "dollar"
Prior to 1873, the silver dollar circulated in many parts of the world, with a value in relation to the British gold
The term "dollar" has also been adopted by other countries for currencies which do not share a common history with other dollars. Many of these currencies adopted the name after moving from a
- The tala is based on the Samoanpronunciation of the word "dollar".
- The Slovenian tolar had the same etymological origin as dollar (that is, thaler).
- The Swedish Daler used to be the name for the currency and have the same etymological origin as the German thaler).
See also
- Eurodollar
- List of circulating currencies
- North American currency unionAmero
- Petrodollar
References
- ^ Torres, Andrea (17 July 2020). "Cuba to accept U.S. dollars at government stores". Local 10.
- ^ Estrada, Oscar Fernandez (8 November 2019). "Return to the US Dollar in Cuba: What about the CUC?". Havana Times.
- ^ Kornbluh, Peter. "Cuba Is Getting Rid of the CUC". Cigar Aficionado.
- ^ "Can I Use U.s. Dollars To Make Purchases In Cuba?". Insight Cuba. Archived from the original on 2021-01-25. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
- ^ Robinson, Circles (30 August 2020). "US Dollar Taking Over in Cuba as CUC Plummets". Havana Times.
- ^ Wojtanik, Andrew (2005). Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society. p. 147.
- ISBN 978-0-19-939003-8.
- ^ Although called Panamanian balboas, US dollars circulate as official currency, since there are no Balboa bills, only coins that are the same size, weight and value as their US counterparts.
- ^ Adopted for all official government transactions
- ^ Hungwe, Brian. "Zimbabwe’s multi-currency confusion", BBC News, Harare, 6 February 2014. Retrieved on 5 November 2016.
- ^ Welcome to Jáchymov: the Czech town that invented the dollar. The tiny town of Jáchymov was just named one of Unesco's newest World Heritage sites Five hundred years after coining the first dollar, a tiny mining town is coming to grips with the many ways it shaped the modern world. bbc.com.
- ^ "Why Is The Dollar Sign A Letter S?". Observation Deck. Archived from the original on 2015-05-04. Retrieved 2015-02-09.
- ^ "Талер, доллар, ефимок — Троицкий вариант — Наука". 20 June 2017. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
- ^ "Lion Dollar - Introduction". coins.nd.edu.
- ISBN 978-1400828708. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
- ^ a b Julian, R.W. (2007). "All About the Dollar". Numismatist: 41.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - ISBN 9781475261080.
- ^ National Geographic. June 2002. p. 1. Ask Us.
- ISBN 9780521578257. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
- JSTOR 967081
- ISSN 0161-7370
- ^ Florian Cajori ([1929]1993). A History of Mathematical Notations (Vol. 2), 15-29.
- JSTOR 2506275
- ^ Nussbaum, Arthur (1957). A History of the Dollar. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 56.
- ISBN 84-300-9090-8
- ^ Bureau of Engraving and Printing. "'What is the origin of the $ sign?' in FAQ Library". Archived from the original on May 5, 2015. Retrieved December 14, 2010.
- ^ Act of April 2, A.D. 1792 of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Section 9.
- ^ Section 13 of the Act.
- ^ United States Statutes at Large.
- ^ Yeoman, RS (1965). A Guide Book of United States Coins.
- ^ Ewart, James E. Money — Ye shall have honest weights and measures.
- ^ International Monetary Conference Held . . . in Paris in August 1878. 1879.
- ISBN 9781402110900.
- ^ Michael, T.R.B. Turnbull (30 July 2009). "Saint Andrew". BBC. Retrieved 27 August 2020.
- ISBN 0-313-33034-4p. 444
- ^ "The Coinage of Britain - Milled Coins 1662-1816". www.kenelks.co.uk. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
- ^ "Monetary Madhouse, Charles Savoie, 2005". Silver-investor.com. Archived from the original on 2012-02-27. Retrieved 2012-03-25.
External links
- Etymonline (word history). for buck; Etymonline (word history) for dollar
- Currency converter. CNNMoney.com