dollar History

The name comes from the Spanish dollars, so called in the English speaking world because of their similarity in size and weight to the German silver Thaler coins that were first minted in 1520 from silver taken from a mine at Joachimsthal, Bohemia, in the Holy Roman Empire. Not long after issuance, these coins gained the name Joachimsthalers. Subsequently, coins of similar size and weight were called Thaler, or dollar regardless of the issuing authority[1], and continued to be minted until 1872.

The name is historically related to the bohemian tolar (16th century) and much later also slovenian tolar (1991), daalder in the Netherlands, Reichsthaler in Germany, and daler in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. "Guildiner" can be traced to 1486 when Archduke Sigismund of Tyrol, a small state north of Venice, issued a dollar-sized coin which was referred to as a "guildiner." Silver supplies were small which limited coinage.[2]

The Dutch lion dollar circulated throughout the Middle East and was imitated in several German and Italian cities. It was also popular in the Dutch East Indies as well as in the Dutch New Netherland Colony (New York). The lion dollar also has circulated throughout the English colonies during the 17th and early 18th centuries . Examples circulating in the colonies were usually fairly well worn so that the design was not fully distinguishable, thus they were sometimes referred to as "dog dollars."[3] This Dutch currency made its way to the east coast due to the increased trading by colonial ships with other nations. By the mid-1700s, it was replaced by the Spanish 8 reales.[4]