What currency did the people of the US use before the dollar?

Question

and this was at the time when the british were fighting u.s.

thx

Answer 1

1775 Continental Currency.

Answer 2

Some used British currency,, others used currency from banks and so on here in the U.S. The problem was that each bank had to keep enough gold on reserve to account for the paper money that was in circulation. Many banks printed their own money. If they were running low then they would just print up a little more, even if they did not have the actual gold or silver to back it up. So you could get money from a bank in New York and go to Pennsylvania and the bank there may only give you 50 cents on the dollar for the bank note from New York. This caused a lot of problems. Many people during the revolutionary period would use coin. The coin would have an amount of gold or silver in it. So instead of paper money they had to carry around a bag with loose coins in it. This was the best way to buy items. Paper money was not seen as sound and reliable. =)

Answer 3

The British pound was the most common currency in the American colonies, although money was often in short supply and currencies of other nations such as France, Spain and Holland were also used. Much trade was based on barter. After the revolution, numerous states, banks, and even merchants issued money of their own, until the US finally issued a national currency beginning in 1789.

Answer 4

Colonial Scrip.

Colonial Scrip was a paper fiat money as opposed to specie issued by the colonies in the pre-revolution era, up until 1775. It was an altogether different money from Continental currency; which was money issued during the American Revolution, that depreciated rapidly, to fund the war effort.

Answer 5

The Spanish Dollar ( a.k.a. the " piece of eight " or the eight real coin ), I have some of these, from the 1790's, they were still in use until discontinued in 1857. They were made out of silver and were literally cut into halves, quarters and eighth's, hence the term : piece of eight.
Many numismatists believe it to be the forerunner of the U.S. dollar.
Read caption above pictures in source.

Answer 6

in between the revolution and the writing of the constitution, there were the Articles of Confederation. under the articles each state could mint their own currency. therefore, each of the 13 states had it's own.

Answer 7

The Monetary System of the United States

The monetary system of the United States was based on bimetallism during most of the 19th cent. A full gold standard was in effect from 1900 to 1933, providing for free coinage of gold and full convertibility of currency into gold coin; the volume of money in circulation was closely related to the gold supply. The passage of the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, which put the country on a modified gold standard, presaged the end of the gold-based monetary system in domestic exchange. Under this system, the dollar was legally defined as having a certain, fixed value in gold. While gold was still thought to be important for maintenance of confidence in the dollar, its connection with the actual use of money was at best vague. The 1934 act stipulated that gold could not be used as a medium of domestic exchange. More recently, a number of measures have de-emphasized the dollar's dependence on gold; since the early 1970s, practically all U.S. currency, paper or coin, is essentially fiat money.

Under the Legal Tender Act of 1933, all American coin and paper money in circulation is now legal tender, i.e., under the law it must be accepted at face value by creditors in payment of any debt, public or private. Most of the currency circulating in the United States consists of Federal Reserve notes, which are issued in denominations ranging from $1 to $100 by the Federal Reserve System, are guaranteed by the U.S. government, and are secured by government securities and eligible commercial paper. A small fraction of the currency supply is made up of the various types of coin, none of which has a commodity value equal to its face value. Finally, an even smaller part of the circulating currency is composed of bills that are no longer issued, such as silver certificates, which were redeemable in silver until 1967; bills in denominations between $500 and $100,000, which have not been issued since 1969; and $2 bills, which have not been issued since 1979. Today, currency and coin are less widely used as a means of payment than checks, debit cards, and credit cards; demand deposits (checking accounts) are, therefore, generally considered part of the money supply. Starting in 1996, the Federal Reserve undertook the redesign of all paper bills, chiefly to deter a new wave of counterfeiting that uses computer technology; further changes, including colors in addition to green, were introduced in 2003. (See banking; on the regulation of the supply, availability, and cost of money, see Federal Reserve System and interest.) Certain assets, sometimes called near-monies, are similar to money in that they can usually be readily converted into cash without loss; they include, for example, time deposits and very short-term obligations of the federal government. Funds that are frequently transferred from country to country for maximum advantage are called hot monies. The technical definition of the nation's aggregate money supply includes three measures of money: M-1, the sum of all currency and demand deposits held by consumers and businesses; M-2 is M-1 plus all savings accounts, time deposits (e.g., certificates of deposit), and smaller money-market accounts; M-3 is M-2 plus large-denomination time deposits held by corporations and financial institutions and money-market funds held by financial institutions.

thanks!

Answer 8

The Spanish/Mexican Peso was widely used. The dollar system is based on the Peso.