Spanish peseta


The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1868 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra.

Etymology

The name of the currency derives from peceta, a Catalan word meaning little piece, from of the Catalan word peça. Its etymology has wrongly been attributed to the Spanish peso. The word peseta has been known as early as 1737 to colloquially refer to the coin worth 2 reales provincial or of a peso. Coins denominated in "pesetas" were briefly issued in 1808 in Barcelona under French occupation; see Catalan peseta.

Symbol

Traditionally, there was never a single symbol or special character for the Spanish peseta. Common abbreviations were "Pta", "Pt", and "Ptas". A common way of representing amounts of pesetas in print was using superior letters: "Pta" and "Pts".
File:AEG Olympia - Traveller de Luxe - Spanish keyboard layout-9620.jpg|left|thumb|A 1970s AEG Olympia Traveller de Luxe typing machine with the ₧ symbol
Common Spanish models of mechanical typewriters had the expression "Pts" on a single type head, as a shorthand intended to fill a single type space in tables instead of three.
Later, Spanish models of IBM electric typewriters also included the same type in its repertoire.
When the first IBM PC was designed in 1980, it included a "peseta symbol" "Pt" in the ROM of the Monochrome Display Adapter and Color Graphics Adapter video output cards' hardware, with the code number 158. This original character set chart later became the MS-DOS code page 437. Some spreadsheet software for PC under MS-DOS, as Lotus 1-2-3, employed this character as the peseta symbol in their Spanish editions. Subsequent international MS-DOS code pages, like code page 850 and others, deprecated this character in favour of some other national characters.
In order to guarantee the interchange with previous encodings such as code page 437, the international standard Unicode includes this character as U+20A7 PESETA SIGN in its Currency Symbols block. Other than that, the use of the "peseta symbol" standalone is extremely rare, and has been outdated since the adoption of the euro in Spain.
In the version 1.0 of Unicode the character ₧ U+20A7 PESETA SIGN had two reference glyphs: a "Pts" ligature glyph as in IBM code page 437 and an erroneous P with stroke. In Unicode 2.0 the reference glyph P with stroke was erroneously displayed as the only symbol for peseta and was later corrected to the Pts ligature and a separate character code was added for the peso sign.

Subdivision

The peseta was subdivided into 100 céntimos and, informally, into 4 reales, which are the origin of the American quarter. The last coin of any value under one peseta was a 50 cts coin issued in 1980 to celebrate Spain's hosting of the 1982 FIFA World Cup. The last 25-céntimo coin was dated 1959, the ten céntimos also dated 1959; both coins bore the portrait of Franco. The 1-céntimo coin was last minted in 1913 and featured King Alfonso XIII. The -céntimo coin was last minted in 1868 and featured Queen Isabel II.

History

Currencies used in Spain before the peseta's introduction in 1868 include:
  • The maravedí from the 11th to 15th centuries.
  • The original Spanish real introduced in the mid-14th century, which from 1497 was fixed at 34 maravedíes. Eight of these reales nacional were equal to the Spanish dollar, or peso, or duro.
  • The real provincial, used only in Peninsular Spain and not its colonies, and valued at dollar.
  • The real de vellón, another version of the real also exclusive to Peninsular Spain, issued prolifically in the 17th and 18th centuries, and valued much less than the above-mentioned reales. In 1737 it was finally fixed at th dollar. In 1850 it was divided decimally into 10 décimos or 100 céntimos.
  • The short-lived silver escudo from 1864 to 1869, worth dollar and divided into 10 reales de vellón or 100 céntimos de escudo.
The peseta, previously not a monetary unit but a colloquial name for the coin worth of a peso, was formally introduced as a currency unit in 1868, at a time when Spain considered joining the Latin Monetary Union. Spain eventually decided not to formally join the LMU, although it did achieve alignment with the bloc. The Spanish Law of June 26, 1864 decreed that in preparation for joining the Latin Monetary Union, the peseta became a subdivision of the Spanish peso with 1 peso duro = 5 pesetas. The peseta replaced all previous currencies denominated in silver escudos and reales de vellón at a rate of 5 pesetas = 1 peso duro = 2 silver escudos = 20 reales de vellón.
The peseta was initially equal to 4.5 grams of silver, or 0.290322 grams of gold, the standard used by all the currencies of the Latin Monetary Union. From 1873, only the gold standard applied.
In 1883 the peseta went off the gold standard and traded below parity with the gold French franc. However, as the free minting of silver was suspended to the general public, the peseta had a floating exchange rate between the value of the gold franc and the silver franc. The Spanish government captured all profits from minting duros out of silver bought for less than Pts 5. While total issuance was limited to prevent the peseta from falling below the silver franc, the abundance of duros in circulation prevented the peseta from returning to par with the gold franc. Spain's system where the silver duro trades at a premium above its metallic value due to relative scarcity is called the fiduciary standard.
The political turbulence of the early twentieth century caused the monetary union to break up, although it was not until 1927 that it officially ended.
During the Civil War, gold and silver coinage was withdrawn and copper-nickel coins were introduced. In 1959, Spain became part of the Bretton Woods System, pegging the peseta at a value of Pts 60 = US$1. In 1967, the peseta followed the devaluation of sterling, maintaining the exchange rate of Pts 168 = £1 stg. and establishing a new rate of Pts 70 = US$1.
High inflation was constant in Spain from the Civil War until the 1990s. After one century with the Pts 1,000 being the largest note, the Pts 5,000 note was introduced in 1976. A series of coins was issued to commemorate the 1982 FIFA World Cup held in Spain. All the fractional coinage was withdrawn in 1983; at the same time, Pts 2,000 and Pts 10,000 notes were introduced.
Pts 200 and Pts 500 notes were withdrawn in 1992 and replaced by coins, leaving Pts 1,000 as the smallest note. Coins ranged from Pta 1 to Pts 500. In that year, a series of coins commemorating 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona and Expo '92 in Seville were issued. Spain was hit heavily by the early 1990s recession and the peseta was devalued three times, the first of them being just after Black Wednesday, plummeting from Pts 100 to Pts 130 per US$1.
All remaining Franco era coinage was withdrawn in 1997. The peseta linked its value with the euro coin on 1 January 1999, and hit rock bottom that year when Pts 200 were required to buy US$1. At the time Euro became a material coin, Pts 185.29 were needed to buy US$1, that is, 1.1743 euros.
The peseta was replaced by the euro in 2002, following the establishment of the euro in 1999. The exchange rate was €1 = Pts 166.386.

Coins

From 1868 to 1982, a unique dating system for Spanish coins was employed. This would be adopted and sometimes abandoned intermittently during various times, and continued through to be used through the first years of Juan Carlos I's reign. Although a common "authorization date" will be found on virtually all coins of this period on the obverse of each coin, the actual date for many coins can be found inside a small six pointed star, typically on the reverse of each coin, but sometimes the front. Therefore, the obverse date does not always reflect the actual date of mintage but rather a restriking of older obverse coin die designs. So, if the coin date shows 1959 up front but a tiny "64" is depicted in the six pointed star on the back, then the actual date of issue is in fact 1964 rather than the date depicted in front. This dating system would be abandoned in the early 1980s anticipating a one-by-one redesign of each coin denomination.

Decimal coinage of the monarchy

  • No coins were issued by the short lived First Republic.
In 1869 and 1870, coins were introduced in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 céntimos, and Pta 1, Pts 2, and Pts 5. The lowest four denominations were struck in copper, with the 20 cts, 50 cts, Pta 1 and Pts 2 struck in.835 silver and the Pts 5 struck in.900 silver. 5 cts and 10 cts coins were quickly nicknamed perra chica and perra gorda respectively, as people then were unable to recognize the shape of the lion in them, mistaking it for a dog. The Pts 5 coin was nicknamed duro, referencing the old peso duro. Pts 5 coins were called duros by every generation until the withdrawal of the peseta in 2002, and Spaniards would often informally account in that unit.
Gold Pts 25 coins were introduced in 1876, followed by Pts 10 in 1878. In 1889, Pts 20 coins were introduced, with production of the Pts 25 ceasing. In 1897, a single issue of gold Pts 100 was made. Production of gold coins ceased in 1904, followed by that of silver coins in 1910. The last bronze coins were issued in 1912.
Starting in 1906 a new series of 1 ctm and 2 cts coins were issued in bronze. Due to a number of economic issues these were the only two coins from this series.
Coin production resumed in 1925 with the introduction of cupronickel 25 cts. In 1926, a final issue of silver 50 cts was made, followed by the introduction of a holed version of the 25 cts in 1927.