When did you first become aware of money? Was it when your parents first gave you an allowance? When your parents argued about how they were going to pay for something? When you lost your first baby tooth and had a visit from the Tooth Fairy?
In fact, if you really think about it, you grew up in a world of money. There were coins that you found fascinating. Paper money that you used to purchase some of those fascinating coins. The check you got when you had a summer job.
Money nowadays comes in a variety of forms, but what was it like in the gestation years of America? If you had been born in the middle of the 18th century, what money would you have found?
A Guide Book of (aka the Red Book) tells us that the immigrants to our shores initially had little use for coined money. However, this attitude changed when goods arrived from Europe, as coins were expected in payment. Foreign coins were readily accepted, with coins such as the “. . . French louis, English guineas, German thalers, Dutch ducats, and various Spanish coins. . ..” being particularly popular. Spanish milled dollars, or pieces of eight, were especially favored.
