Note 23 — EVENTS IN FILIPINAS, 1801–1840

The “pillar dollar” was so called from the pillars on the reverse of the coin, which represent the pillars of Hercules, or the Straits of Gibraltar; this device was characteristic of the Spanish-American coinage. This dollar was the peso duro (or “hard dollar”), of eight reals; and its half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and thirty-second parts were represented by smaller coins. The greater part of the supply of pillar dollars were made in Mexico; but this coinage ceased in 1822. In the Peninsula, the coins were the dollar—formerly of ten reals, but now of twenty reals vellón—the half, the peseta or pistareen (which is one-fifth of the dollar, or four reals vellón), and the half and the quarter pistareen. After the Peninsular revolution of 1821, pillar dollars were struck for a short time at Madrid, but these are easily distinguishable from the true pillar dollar. In 1810–16, silver coins were used in Brazil, which were only the Spanish dollar, softened by annealing, and then restamped; the pillars may be distinguished underneath this surface, by close inspection. See Eckfeldt and DuBois, Manual of Gold and Silver Coins (Philadelphia, 1842), pp. 33, 77, 119, 122, See also chapter on Spanish coinage, especially that called “vellón,” in Lea’s Inquisition in Spain (New York, 1906–07), i, pp. 560 et seq.; this latter, although debased, was the standard of value until 1871, when it was replaced by the decimal system. ↑