Pieces of Eight!

[capnwilliam]

I'd always heard that it was a common practice to cut a certain coin of the GAOP into eight pieces - "making change", so to speak - but then I heard that the coin in question was a "peso", and was worth "eight reales".

So I got to wondering: maybe "piece" is "peso", bastardized into English, and the "eight" meant only that such is the value of the coin?

Capt. William

[Fox]

A piece of eight is certainly an eight real coin, roughly equivalent to the European thaler or American dollar.

Don't you guys have 8 "bits" in a dollar?

May I direct you toTHIS THREAD on another discussion board.

[Patrick Hand]

Don't you guys have 8 "bits" in a dollar?

We have a quarter (2 bits).......But I've always wondered why we don't have a 12 1/2 cent coin (1 bit)....

[greenighs]

I've tried cutting me gold coins into pieces o' eight, but I just end up with slivers of foil in me chocolate.

[Patrick Hand]

I've tried cutting me gold coins into pieces o' eight,

See that's your first mistake....... you were suppose to be using the silver coins.... not the gold ones......

[Red Maria]

Yes they were cut up coins. More spefically Spanish dollar de ocho reales which were worth 8 silver reales. Currency being based back then on weight rather today's 'face value' a coin could be cut up and used to buy things. Also when divving up booty in order to make share equal coins were often cut up. Sometimes by half a reale, sometime by a quarter of a reale and sometimes by a eight of a reale.

An eight of a reale was refered to as a bit. Hence 2 bits making phyically a quarter of a reale. One more thing. Holes were oftn punched in the coins so they could be strung and tie aound the neck or some other place that was secure on the body.

When America came to choose it's name for it's currency it chose the Spanish dollar over the British pound and with it it's nomenclature for it's diviosn. That's why we have half dollars and quarters (2 bits persisted as a slang term). Even when paper oney came into use the old terms stayed.

I was to have a set of a reale, a half reale a reale in quarters and in eights. It was a good teaching tool at evnets about pirate booty and 17th-18th cnetury currency. The pouch I had it infell off my belt and I haven't seen it since. I hope replcae it some day :)