Topic summary
American dollar
Extracted from the Wikipedia article United States dollar.
Origins: the Spanish dollar
Even after the United States Mint commenced issuing coins in 1792, locally minted dollars and cents were less abundant in circulation than Spanish Americanpesos and reales; hence Spanish, Mexican, and American dollars all remained legal tender in the United States until the Coinage Act of 1857. In particular, colonists' familiarity with the Spanish two-real quarter peso was the reason for issuing a quasi-decimal 25-cent quarter dollar coin rather than a 20-cent coin.