No Bathroom Wall out-lets or A/C!!??

[Ninurta]

Pennies, dimes, quarters, and dollars didn't really take off as a medium of exchange here until around 1790, and they were patterned after the Spanish dollar - that's why a quarter (quarter dollar) used to be referred to as "two bits". Spanish dollars were often subdivided into eighths -A.K.A. "pieces of eight" or "bits" - and two of those "bits" equaled out to a quarter of a Spanish dollar.

We did have "Continental dollars" here earlier, but they were practically worthless, hence the phrase "not worth a Continental". Most road houses and the like still listed all their prices in pounds, shillings, and pence, and Continental dollars were rarely ever used in reality because of their debased value. Sort of like Confederate dollars a hundred years later. Wright's Tavern in Wentworth, NC (Rockingham County), was still listing their prices in pounds, shillings, and pence into the early 1800's.

Now that is interesting, the phrase "not worth a Continental" always threw me, in my head a 'Continental' is an American car... why would
it be worthless? Now I know, thanks. The Spanish reference may go to explain the old pirate mention of 'pieces of eight' too.

That is a connection I never made, despite having owned a 1972 Lincoln Continental Mark III, an edition of which there were supposedly only 600 ever made. It had a 460 engine in it, the biggest car engine I've ever owned, and would flat out fly once I got it up to speed. It took a little time to get there, but once there it was Hell on Wheels. I lucked into it - my brother in law at the time bought it to put the engine in his truck, and then didn't have the heart to destroy the car to get to the engine, so he sold it to me for what he had in it. I only gave the equivalent of 224 pounds sterling for it, but if you say instead "53,760 pence", it sounds more expensive...

And yes, the phrase "pieces of eight" was used by pirates, who originally traded mostly in stolen Spanish loot, including Spanish dollars, seized on the high seas off the Spanish Main as it was being transported to Spain from the new World... And breaking a dollar into eight bits was more agreeable for purchase of a pint of ale or a bottle of rum than giving a whole dollar for it! They were often used in the American colonies, emanating out from St. Augustine into the English parts of America. The Spanish Dollars were made out of real gold, giving them an intrinsic value not possessed by paper scrip currency, so the broken pieces of eight retained their subdivided value in gold.

That is also the source of biting a coin to determine whether it was real or not - counterfeits were struck out of lead and merely gold plated, but biting them would show whether the base material was the softer lead or not by leaving deeper tooth marks in the counterfeits.

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