Information about Dollars

The dollar (often represented by the dollar sign: "$") is the name of the official currency in several countries, dependencies and other regions.

History

The name Thaler (from German thal, or nowadays usually Tal, "valley", cognate with "dale" in English) came from the German coin Guldengroschen ("great guilder", being of silver but equal in value to a gold guilder), minted from the silver from a rich mine at Joachimsthal - Jáchymov (St. Joachim's Valley) in Bohemia (then part of the Holy Roman Empire, now part of the Czech Republic). The basis of "thaler" comes from Joachimsthaler.^[1] The name is historically related to the tolar in Slovenia (Slovenian tolar) and Bohemia, the daalder in the Netherlands and daler in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

The name "Spanish dollar" was used for a Spanish coin, the "real de a ocho" and later peso, worth eight reals (hence the nickname "pieces of eight"), which was widely circulated during the 18th century in the Spanish colonies in the New World and in Spanish territories in Asia, namely in the Philippines.The use of the Spanish dollar and the Maria Theresa thaler as legal tender for the early United States are the reasons for the name of the nation's currency. However, the word dollar was in use in the English language as slang or mis-pronunciation for the thaler for about 200 years before the American Revolution, with many quotes in the plays of Shakespeare referring to dollars as money. Spanish dollars were in circulation in the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States, and were legal tender in Virginia.

The Dutch lion dollar circulated throughout the Middle East and was imitated in several German and Italian cities. It was also popular in the Dutch East Indies as well as in the Dutch New Netherlands Colony (New York). The lion dollar also circulated throughout the English colonies during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Examples circulating in the colonies were usually fairly well worn so that the design was not fully distinguishable, thus they were sometimes referred to as "dog dollars."[1]

Coins known as dollars were also in use in Scotland during the 17th century, and there is a claim that the use of the English word, and perhaps even the use of the coin, began at the University of St Andrews. This explains the sum of 'Ten thousand dollars' mentioned in Macbeth (Act I, Scene II), although the real Macbeth upon whom the play was based lived in the 11th century, making the reference anachronistic; however this is not rare in Shakespeare's work.

In the early 19th century, a British five-shilling piece, or crown, was sometimes called a dollar, probably because its appearance was similar to the Spanish dollar. This expression appeared again in the 1940s, when U.S. troops came to the UK during World War II. At the time a U.S. dollar was worth about 5s., so some of the U.S. soldiers started calling it a dollar. Consequently, they called the half crown "half a dollar", and the expression caught on among some locals and could be heard into the 1960s.

In the early days of the United States, the dollar was a defined unit of trade equal to 412.5 grains (26.73 g) of 90% silver. Today the closest definition to a dollar comes from the 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." However Federal Reserve banks are only prejudiced to deliver tax credits instead of money. The silver content of U.S. coinage was mostly removed in 1965 and the dollar essentially became a baseless free-floating fiat currency; though the U.S. Mint continues to make silver $1 bullion coins at this weight. It is believed that the original green color and other specific designs of a paper dollar were introduced by 2 Armenian brothers from Massachusetts who were Near-Eastern immigrants.

Related names in modern currencies

• The tala is based on the Samoan pronunciation of the word "dollar". Likewise, the name of the smaller unit, seneiti, equates to "cent".
• The Slovenian tolar had the same origin as dollar, i.e. thaler.

National currencies called "dollar"

Some of these are called dollars in English, but by a different name in the native language of the country. See the navigational box below for a complete list.

The name has also been applied to the international dollar, a hypothetical unit of currency that has the same purchasing power that the U.S. dollar has in the United States at a given point in time.

See also

• Denarius - Roman Empire currency
• Dollar sign
• List of circulating currencies

References

•  • [ e] Currencies named dollar or similar
Circulating	Australian dollar Bahamian dollar Barbadian dollar Belize dollar Bermudian dollar Brunei dollar Canadian dollar Cayman Islands dollar Cook Islands dollar East Caribbean dollar Fijian dollar Guyanese dollar Hong Kong dollar Jamaican dollar Kiribati dollar Liberian dollar Namibian dollar New Zealand dollar Samoan tala Singapore dollar (dolar, வெள்ளி) Solomon Islands dollar Surinamese dollar New Taiwan dollar Trinidad and Tobago dollar United States dollar Zimbabwean dollar
Circulating, formerly a.k.a. dollar	Malaysian dollar
Obsolete	Antigua dollar British North Borneo dollar British West Indies dollar Ceylonese rixdollar Confederate States of America dollar Continental dollar Danish rigsdaler Danish West Indian daler (dollar) Danish West Indian rigsdaler Dominican dollar Dutch rijksdaalder Greenlandic rigsdaler Grenadan dollar Hawaiian dollar (dala) Kiautschou dollar Malaya and British Borneo dollar Malayan dollar Mauritian dollar Mongolian dollar Nevisian dollar New Brunswick dollar Newfoundland dollar Norwegian rigsdaler Norwegian speciedaler Nova Scotian dollar Penang dollar Puerto Rican dollar Rhodesian dollar Saint Kitts dollar Saint Lucia dollar Saint Vincent dollar Sarawak dollar Sierra Leonean dollar Slovenian tolar Spanish dollar Straits dollar Sumatran dollar Swedish riksdaler Old Taiwan dollar Texan dollar Trinidadian dollar Tobagan dollar Tuvaluan dollar
Obsolete, a.k.a. dollar	Chinese yuan Ethiopian birr
Conceptual	Eurodollar International dollar Petrodollar Geary-Khamis dollar
Virtual	Linden dollar
Fictional	Dollarpound
Private	Antarctican dollar Calgary dollar Disney dollar Liberty dollar Toronto dollar Millennium Dollar
See also	Dollar sign Holey dollar Thaler $1