Pieces of Eight, Escudos, & Doubloons | The Pirates Port

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“English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what looked like wisps of string or bits of spider’s web, round pieces and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if to wear them round your neck – nearly every variety of money in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collection; and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with sorting them out.”
-Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

In the Golden Age of Piracy five nations had colonies spread amongst the islands of the Caribbean and the Spanish Main. Each nation had their own currency and the method of exchange was a little more complicated than it is today. Pirates also raided ships in the Indian Ocean where traders used different currencies as well.

The Spanish Dollar, also known as the Piece of Eight or Peso, was BY FAR the world’s first international currency. In fact, the Spanish Dollar was what the US Dollar was based upon and it remained legal tender in the United States all the way up until 1857. The Piece of Eight got its nickname because it was worth eight reals and was commonly cut into eight pieces or bits to make change. If you’ve ever heard someone refer to a quarter as two bits know you know why. One quarter of a US dollar would be two bits or 2 eighths of a coin.

The Pesos were minted in absolutely massive quantities after the Spanish realized the extent of the silver deposits in Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia. Originally a peso was produced by chopping off a chunk of silver from a bar, filing it to the correct weight, hammering it flat, and pressing it with a simple design. These coins were called cobs in English and, more or less, were designed simply to be more convenient to handle and account for. In most cases they were melted down when they arrived back in Europe but some stayed in use as currency. The coins became very popular because people were able to trade silver of a known value and fineness, 25.56 grams, instead of rough silver.

The Escudo was a Spanish gold coin worth 16 reales or two Pesos and the famous Doubloon (from doblón, Spanish for double) was worth two Escudos. The English used a gold coin named the Guinea that was 22 carets and weighed 8.3 grams. The English also had the farthings, two of which made up one half Penny. Two half Pennies equaled one Penny, twelve Pennies equaled one Shilling, Five Shillings made one Crown, 4 Crowns equaled 1 Pound Sterling or 6 Crowns equaled one Guinea.

So, first off, yes, that was really the system they used and apparently people were much better with math in those days. And that’s just the English system. If you’re wondering what the value of these coins would be in today’s money it’s difficult to give exact equivalents because the cost of living was MUCH less but it’s accepted that a piece of eight had the buying power of around $50 US Dollars and a British Pound Sterling had the buying power of around $200. If you remember a few episodes back I did a video about the wenches in Port Royal and mentioned a certain Salt-Beef Peg? Well, it was reported that Peg charged 500 pieces of eight to see her nude (which would have been special because in those days it was rare for a prostitute to take her clothes off as it took much longer to get ready than it does today). Regardless, 500 pieces of eight would have the approximate buying power of $25,000 today so that gives you an idea of why these men were willing to risk their lives being Pirates..

Beyond these coins there were many more, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Indian, Arabian, Chinese, and on and on. A pirate would have asked a bartender or merchant if he accepted the currency and that would have been followed by an inspection, being weighed, and the coin likely bit to determine the value. In some far away lands a merchant wouldn’t want a certain type of coin at all but Pirates rarely held on to currency for long enough for that to be a concern.

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Special Thank You to Flintlock for the awesome new intro music! You can check his videos out at    • Episode 1: Drunk playing  

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