Why did all so many of the British Empire's Colonies us dollars? (IE US, Can, Aust, NZ, ect) Why not pounds?

Question

Hey, If I had the biggest empire in the world all those folks would be spending my king of money!

Answer 1

The third poster correctly identifies the source of the word "dollar" as the German "thaler." The origin is the Bohemian "Joachimsthaler Groschen," a large silver coin made from metal mined in a rich discovery in the Joachimsthal region (the Joachim Valley - "thal" means "valley"). This coin for a time flooded the world markets as a reliable and popular piece of money and became known by its shortened name, the "Joachimsthaler," and then just the "thaler."

By the time Spain had begun minting millions of silver coins from its New World colonies, the world "thaler," bowdlerized by English speakers to "dollar," was a generic name for a silver coin of an approximate value. To the English, the "thaler" or "dollar" was about one-fourth the value of an English pound sterling.

The Spanish "piece of eight," also known in abbreviated form as a "peso" or "peseta," soon became the universal basic currency in the world. There were millions of them all over the place. This was also called a "dollar," or a "Spanish dollar." And most of the time it was worth about one fourth of a British pound sterling.

After the American Revolutionary War, there was no formal system of uniform currency. The State of Maryland adopted the "Spanish dollar" as an officially-recognized form of money. Maryland went so far as to issue paper money on which was written that the value of the paper was equal to a set amount of Spanish dollars.

When the U.S., thanks to the very difficult labors of Alexander Hamilton, finally achieved a uniform national currency in about 1807, the symbol for the American monetary unit - the "dollar," chosen for convenience and because that's the word everyone used anyhow - was the symbol dervied from the Spanish 8-real silver coin - a pair of pillars on top of the letter "S".

Pounds and Francs and other kinds of currency continued in use in many parts of the world, but for various reasons the dollar also spread as the basis of national currencies. But it started with a rich silver discovery in the Joachimsthal, in 1516.

Answer 2

At the moment it is 50pence. This is a good reason to get over there. Many things are cheaper in the States now and given the fact the dollar is weak we can purchase even more with the mighty pound!! But around 40 years ago, there used to be four dollars to the pound, which is why 25p was often called a dollar!!

Answer 3

I think it harks back to the 17th and 18th centuries when financial institutions including monetary systems were in their infancy and weren't as formal or controlled as today. As a result many tradesmen/merchants would have traded using what money they had on them and in Europe the Thaller (a German empire currency) was common. It wasn't a huge leap for the Thaller to become the dollar.

Answer 4

Very simply- the dollar is decimal and much easier to work with. Everyone had to eventually go decimal just for practicality's sake.

The British went decimal too but decided to retain the name "pound" for the simple fact that it's definitely British. They'll cling to anything they can that might remind them that they were once an empire.

Answer 5

When these countries were colonies, they did use pounds (some of them until fairly recently). Some, like Gibraltar still do.

Those that changed after independence did so as they needed to find their own identity as a nation, rather than just a British colony.