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The peso is the
monetary unit A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general def ...
of several countries in the Americas, and the Philippines. Originating in the
Spanish Empire The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its prede ...
, the word translates to "weight". In most countries the peso uses the same sign, "$", as many currencies named "
dollar Dollar is the name of more than 20 currencies. They include the Australian dollar, Brunei dollar, Canadian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Jamaican dollar, Liberian dollar, Namibian dollar, New Taiwan dollar, New Zealand dollar, Singapore dollar, U ...
". The sign "
The Philippine peso sign (₱) is the currency symbol used for the Philippine peso, the official currency of the Philippines. The symbol resembles a Roman letter P with two horizontal strokes. It differs from the currency symbol used for the pe ...
" is used in the Philippines. The silver ''peso'' worth eight '' reales'' was also known in English as a
Spanish dollar The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight ( es, Real de a ocho, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content ...
or "piece of eight" and was a widely used international trade coin from the 16th to the 19th century.


Origin and history


1537–1686 piece of eight

The name peso was given to the 8-
real Real may refer to: Currencies * Brazilian real (R$) * Central American Republic real * Mexican real * Portuguese real * Spanish real * Spanish colonial real Music Albums * ''Real'' (L'Arc-en-Ciel album) (2000) * ''Real'' (Bright album) (2010) ...
silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
coin introduced in 1497, minted at 8 pesos to a Castilian mark (230.0465 grams) of silver 134/144 fine (25.56 g fine silver). It was minted in large quantities after the discovery of silver in Mexico, Peru and Bolivia in the 16th century, and immediately became a coin of worldwide importance in international trade between Europe, Asia and North America. Initially the peso was produced in Spanish
Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
in a rapid and simplified manner by cutting off a lump of silver of proper weight and fineness from the end of a silver bar, which was then flattened out and impressed by a hammer. This resulted in a crude, irregular coin called a ''cob'' in English and ''macuquina'' in Spanish. The Crown was entitled to a fifth of all gold and silver mined, the ''
quinto real The ''quinto real'' or the quinto del rey, the "King's fifth", was a 20% tax established in 1504 that Spain levied on the mining of precious metals. The tax was a major source of revenue for the Spanish monarchy. In 1723 the tax was reduced to 10%. ...
'' (royal fifth), and cobs were a convenient means of handling and accounting for silver. In most cases these cobs were immediately melted down by the recipient. However, some remained in circulation as currency; they were ideal candidates for clipping and counterfeiting due to their irregular shape and incomplete design. Spanish laws of 1728 and 1730 ordered the mechanization of the minting of the peso so that they would be perfectly round and have milled edges. There was a simultaneous reduction in weight and fineness to 8.5 pesos to a mark (27.064 g), 0.9167 fine or 24.809 g fine silver. This new peso became even more popular in international trade, with recipients finding it more advantageous to trade it as coined silver of known value rather than melting it into silver bullion. This coin was known to English colonists in North America as a ''piece of eight'', then later on as a ''Spanish dollar'', ''Spanish milled dollar'', and finally as a ''Mexican dollar''. In French, it was called a ''
piastre The piastre or piaster () is any of a number of units of currency. The term originates from the Italian for "thin metal plate". The name was applied to Spanish and Hispanic American pieces of eight, or pesos, by Venice, Venetian traders in the ...
'' and in Portuguese, a ''pataca'' or ''patacão''. The Spanish names at various times and in various places were ''real de a ocho'', '' patacón'', ''duro'', or ''fuerte''. A final alteration in 1772 further reduced the fineness of the peso from 11/12 fine to 130/144 = 0.9028 (fine silver 24.443 g). A sample of coins at the end of the 18th century, however, confirm a fineness of only 0.896 (hence, fine silver 24.25 g); see Currency of Spanish America#Coinage of 1786. The weight of the
United States dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...
was defined in 1788 as 371.25 grains of fine silver (or 24.057 g) based on the average silver content of worn peso coins. The full 0.9028 fineness was restored by Mexico after its independence in 1821.


In Spain

While the relationship of = (or peso duro) continued in the Americas until the 19th century, Spain grappled with the issuance of ''reales de vellon'' (made of billon alloy with less than ½ silver) of various weights and finenesses starting in 1600 due to its domestic financial and monetary problems. In 1642, it first recognized a new, reduced ''real provincial'' worth only or for use only in Spain (with the old real worth now called ''real nacional'' and retained in Latin America). In 1686 Spain minted a coin worth provinciales (or only , known as the ''peso maria'' or ''peso sencillo'') which was poorly received by the people. An edict made in the same year which valued the peso duro at = reales de vellon proved to be ineffective as the various reales in circulation contained even less silver. The situation was only resolved in 1837 with the peso duro fixed at $1 = 20 reales de vellon, with all prior non-standard reales demonetized. The loss of Latin American colonies and the ensuing domestic instability in the 19th century cut off the inflow of precious metals into Spain and resulted in French coinage gradually entering domestic circulation. Two subsequent decimal system reforms were attempted in 1850 (at = , each of or ) and 1864 (at = , each of ) but were not fully carried out. The peso and the real were only fully retired with the introduction in 1868 of the
Spanish peseta The peseta (, ), * ca, pesseta, was the currency of Spain between 1868 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a ''de facto'' currency used in Andorra (which had no national currency with legal tender). Etymology The name of th ...
, at par with the
French franc The franc (, ; sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amount of money. It w ...
, and at the rate of = = = of fine silver.


1821–1897 Mexican dollar

The successful revolt of the Spanish colonies in America had cut off the supply of silver coin by 1820. By 1825 "...the Spanish dollar, the universal coin of three centuries, had lost its supremacy, and...its universal dominion was in process of disintegration into rival 'currency areas', chief among which was destined to be the area dominated by British sterling."Chalmers, p. 24 The Spanish dollar continued to dominate the Eastern trade, and the peso of eight reales continued to be minted in the New World. The coin was sometimes called a Republican dollar, but eventually any peso of the old Spanish eight-real standard was generally referred to as a Mexican dollar, Mexico being the most prolific producer. Mexico restored the standard of 1772, producing a coin of 27.073 g, 0.9028 fine, containing 24.441 g fine silver (the mark weight of the Mexico City mint was very slightly heavier than the standard mark of Spain). In 1869–1870, not long after adopting the
metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the Decimal, decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in French Revolution, France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the d ...
, Mexican mints began producing the peso of “Un Peso” denomination, popularly known as “balanza” (scales), with the same weight and fineness, but with a uniform diameter of 37 mm (making it slightly thicker than the old peso, which was slightly irregular, with a diameter of 38–40 mm). Chinese merchants rejected the new coin, discounting it by 4%–5% in favor of the old eight-real peso. Faced with this threat to her silver exports, Mexico returned to the old eight-real peso by decree of May 29, 1873, but international trade was already shifting from silver to gold, and after 1873 there was a steady decline in the international price of silver. Until 1873 the Mexican dollar would have been to all intents and purposes equal in value to the silver dollar coins of the United States north of the border, but at that time in history, the Mexican coin would have had a much greater international presence than the
U.S. dollar The United States dollar ( symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the officia ...
. The great silver devaluation of 1873 caused the Mexican dollar to drop in value against the U.S. dollar, but until the beginning of the 20th century the Mexican dollar would still have been a more widely accepted coin in the Far East than the U.S. dollar. Between the 16th and 19th centuries Mexico produced well over three billion of these coins. Mexico minted the last eight-real peso in 1897, and at the beginning of the twentieth century these Mexican dollar coins were worth only 50 U.S. cents.


Philippine peso

The Philippine peso (Filipino: piso) is derived from the Spanish silver coin ''Real de a Ocho'' or ''Spanish dollar'', in wide circulation in the entire America and Southeast Asia during the 17th and 18th centuries, through its use in the Spanish colonies and even in the United States and Canada. Prior to 1852 the Philippines had no currency of its own (with the exception of local copper cuartos) since pesos received from Spain and Spanish Latin America were accepted in circulation. Locally issued pesos only came about with * The issuance of
Philippine peso fuerte The Philippine peso fuerte (Spanish "Strong Peso" sign: PF) was the first paper currency of the Philippines and the Spanish East Indies during the later Spanish colonial period. It co-circulated with other Spanish silver and gold coins and was is ...
banknotes in 1852 by the ''
Banco Español-Filipino de Isabel II Bank of the Philippine Islands ( fil, Bangko ng Kapuluang Pilipinas, es, Banco de las Islas Filipinas, commonly known as BPI; ) is a universal bank in the Philippines. It is the first bank in both the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It is t ...
'' (now the
Bank of the Philippine Islands Bank of the Philippine Islands ( fil, Bangko ng Kapuluang Pilipinas, es, Banco de las Islas Filipinas, commonly known as BPI; ) is a universal bank in the Philippines. It is the first bank in both the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It is t ...
) * The founding of the Casa de Moneda de Manila mint in 1857 and the minting of gold 1, 2 and 4 peso coins starting 1861, and * The minting of 50, 20 and 10 centimo silver coins starting 1864. As with Mexican dollars, the Philippine unit was based on silver, unlike the United States and Canada where a
gold standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the la ...
operated. Thus, following the great silver devaluation of 1873, the Philippine peso devalued in parallel with the Mexican unit, and by the end of the 19th century, was worth half a United States dollar. The name of the currency remained unchanged despite the 1896 Philippine Revolution and the subsequent
declaration of independence A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the ...
in 1898.


Countries that use pesos


Current


Former

Several countries formerly used different currencies also named peso not listed here, with different value, over time. See Argentine peso#History.


See also

*
Currency of Spanish America This article provides an outline of the currency of Spanish America (''las Indias'', the Indies) from Spanish colonization in the 15th century until Spanish American independencies in the 19th. This great realm was divided into the Viceroyalty of N ...


References

* . * . * . * . {{Authority control Currency symbols Denominations (currency)