Topic: OK so periodically I look up the origin of the peso/dollar sign to see if there's more information
boof started this discussion 2 weeks ago #126,163
You see, there are many competing stories about where $ came from. Often people recall that a teacher or professor told them just one of these stories and so that's what they believe. But we don't really know. What we do know is the earliest found instance of anything resembling the symbol. The sample of writing is from an Irish man Oliver Pollock who did business in New Orleans prior to the American Revolution. In those times, Spanish currency was common in the area. The famous piece of eight coin you may have heard of: El real de a ocho, peso de ocho, peso fuerte o peso duro, conocido en el mundo anglosajón como dólar español (peso means piece, as in the Spanish dollar was the 8 real piece (worth 8 reals)). Anyhow, in writing, the story goes, it was common to write a p and an s stuck on it. People tended to write the thing in a quick and economical manner with a one-stroke flourish sooner or later, as the Irish man did in this document.https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-bankrupt-irishman-who-created-the-dollar-sign-by-accident
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 2 weeks ago, 4 hours later[^] [v] #1,366,017
Neat. I learn something erryday from boofthreads.
boof (OP) replied with this 2 weeks ago, 4 hours later, 9 hours after the original post[^] [v] #1,366,041
yay!
Anonymous D joined in and replied with this 2 weeks ago, 12 hours later, 21 hours after the original post[^] [v] #1,366,124
@OP
Great article, very interesting. Not being ironic, I learned a great deal.
Great article, very interesting. Not being ironic, I learned a great deal.
boof (OP) replied with this 2 weeks ago, 2 hours later, 23 hours after the original post[^] [v] #1,366,128
Yeah I like finding a thing like that