Long Live the Dollar

By | December 26, 2018

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One hundred dollar bill/image from Wikipedia

The dollar has, through the course of history, almost completely lost its value. Soon there will be no dollar of any type left. Already, in most places, they prefer plastic over paper.


The dollar was put in place officially in the United States on September 8, 1786, by Continental Congress. Even before that, though, the roots of the dollar can be traced back to Bavaria in 1518, not in America. In Bavaria, a small town issued standardized silver coins taken from a nearby silver mine. These coins were called “thalers” which comes from the word “Thal,” meaning valley in German. The standard weight was 29.2 grams. Various countries in Europe recognized the value in having a standardized currency system in place and soon followed suit with the “thaler.” Even though different governments produced the coins from different mines and methodology, the coins were basically identical.

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Spanish Silver Dollar/image from govmint.com

The Silver Dollar

The “Spanish Silver Dollar” came about as the New World was explored and Spanish explorers found rich mines in Mexico, which is where they produced the silver dollars. It was not long before it became the most common coin in the colonies even though there were still other silver dollars circulating. Even though it was more popular, silver dollars from the Old World still complicated transactions throughout America. As such, they began to search for just one currency to be the standard.