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The dollar itself actually originated from the peso or Spanish dollar in the late 18th century. The sign "₱" is used in the Philippines. The silver peso worth eight reales was also known in English as a Spanish dollar or "piece of eight" and was widely used for international trade from the 16th to the 19th century.
The East Caribbean dollar is used in all seven member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Anguilla (a British overseas territory); the only OECS member using a different currency is the British Virgin Islands, [13] a British overseas territory where the U.S. dollar is the official currency.
By far the leading specie coin circulating in America was the Spanish silver dollar, defined as consisting of 387 grains of pure silver. The dollar was divided into "pieces of eight," or "bits," each consisting of one-eighth of a dollar. Spanish dollars came into the North American colonies through lucrative trade with the West Indies.
The modern dollar and peso symbols originated from the mark employed to denote the Spanish dollar, [2] whereas the pound and lira symbols evolved from the letter L (written until the seventeenth century in blackletter type as ) standing for libra, a Roman pound of silver. [3]
The dollar sign, also known as the peso sign, is a currency symbol consisting of a capital S crossed with one or two vertical strokes ($ or depending on typeface), used to indicate the unit of various currencies around the world, including most currencies denominated "dollar" or "peso".
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The term is still unofficially used in Quebec, Acadian, Franco-Manitoban, and Franco-Ontarian language as a reference to the Canadian dollar, much as English speakers say "bucks." (The official French term for the modern Canadian dollar is dollar.) When used colloquially in this way, the term is often pronounced and spelled piasse (pl. piasses).
During the raid, police found 20 million euros, or around $21.1 million, in cash hidden in the walls and ceilings of the couple's home in Alcala de Henares, a town of around 195,000 inhabitants ...