![]() Many early contracts in Lowndes and Monroe Counties, specified payment in Spanish silver or mentioned denominations such as 6 1/4 or 12 1/2 cents indicating the use of reals rather than U.S. In the early 1800s many people in the South preferred Spanish silver coins over American coins. ![]() Spanish silver coins were declared legal tender, or money, in the U.S. ![]() In the early 1800s, these coins would be made into spoons and other serving pieces which were then called “coin silver.” If George Washington skipped a silver dollar across the Potomac, as legend says, it would have been a Spanish 8 real coin. Holes were often punched into the coins so that they could either be worn as jewelry or pinned inside of a coat for safe keeping when traveling. The word picayune came from the French provincial word “picaioun” which was used during the 1700s along the Gulf Coast to mean a small coin. This evolved into the saying 2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits a dollar.Ī half-real coin was worth 6 1/4 cents and known as a picayune. A 4 real or bit coin was thus worth a half dollar. The 1 real coin or 1 bit was worth 12 1/2 cents and so 2 bits was 25 cents. This was evidence of the mixing of cultures as “bit” was a term that originated in England during the 1700s. Later smaller coins of 1/2, 1, 2 and 4 reals began to be minted. At first it was one large coin that would be cut into 8 pie-shaped wedges to make change. The term real coin referred to the silver coin being a royal coin. The Spanish silver dollar minted in Mexico and South America from the 1600s to the early 1800s was called an 8 real coin. Several of them have been found in Columbus and along the Tombigbee. The current box office hit is the movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.” As in all pirate movies, the pirates seek silver coins called “pieces of eight.” A piece of eight was an actual Spanish silver coin.
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