Piastre

Piastres is the name of an old Spanish currency coin of high value. It was a designation of the peso, the eight- reales coin. By trading the coin and the name in Arab and North African Mediterranean spread. There, the name then went on to other large silver coins. The large silver coins of Italian States were called piastra. At the end of the 16th century were first coined in the Papal States piastres.

Even King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway was 1624 piastres shape for the trade of the Danish East India Company. King Christian VII of Denmark - Norway coined in 1771 also piastres, which resemble the Spanish piastres, but bear the inscription " GLORIA EX AMORE PATRIA ". In English-speaking, they were " pillar Greenland dollar" called " Pillar dollar" or; The latter was an absurd name, because the coin had no connection to Greenland.

The currency name piastres was also common in the former Spanish America and the Ottoman Empire. Even Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan use this denomination (Arabic قرش qirsch, plural قروش qurūsch ), but as currency subunit for the Egyptian and Lebanese pound and the Jordanian Dinar. Hundred piastres found an Egyptian pounds. Also in Morocco, Tunisia and Cyprus piastres were issued. The determined as part of the gold standard exchange rate against the mark was in 1912 for the Turkish piastres per 5,715 Mark, for the Egyptian 4.83. 1 Lira (= 100 gold piastres ) corresponded to 18.45 marks.

Piastre is the French name for this coin. This name was France from 1880 trade coins, modeled on the U.S. trade dollars in Indochina. The Canadian dollar is sometimes also still called in Quebec so. Similarly, the U.S. dollar in the French-speaking part of Louisiana ( Acadia / Acadiana ), in Cajun French.

Egypt 1840: 100 piastres, Sultan Abdülmecid I

Cyprus 1901: 36 piastres, Edward VII

In Kongsberg embossed Danish- Norwegian piastres 1777