TRIVIA:1st U.S.A. Legal Tender Coin

It was more that some of your comments were contardictory. For example - here you said,

But then later you said -

The two statements are in direct contradiction to each other. And then when you said -

And then you said that the 8 reales were made legal tender by -

Again, these 2 statements are in direct contradiction to each other.


Now I will grant you that I was not aware that the legal tender status of the Spanish colonial silver had changed so many times as you relate. But it really doesn't suprise me given the way the status of our own minor coins changed in later years. All I knew for sure was that the Spanish colonial silver was made legal tender by Congress in 1793.

Your comments were really rather confusing. Either way, I appreicate the .pdf file and will keep it.

 

Not to be argumentative, but I'm not missing it - you didn't say it. Read your original comments.

Yes I am well aware there is difference between the coins minted in Spain and those minted at the Spanish colonial mints.

But I think you've got things mixed up. It is my contention that the coins of the Spanish colonial mints, including the fractional coins, are what was made legal tender by the 1793 act. It was the Spanish colonial silver coins that were widely distributed and circulated throughtout the colonies. The coins minted in Spain were, excepting maybe pistareens and some gold, were hardly ever found here in the colonies. I do not have a copy of the act to prove it. But I do have a copy of the 1792 act that refers to the Spanish dollar as being the basis for our own coinage.

"DOLLARS OR UNITS--each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, "

And it was the 8 reales coin of the Spanish colonial mints that was called a Spanish milled dollar - not the 8 reales coin minted in Spain.

Now you may well be 100% correct about what was or was not made legal tender by the later acts as I had never even heard of those acts and I do not question your comments on those.