DE LA PERRA GORDA A LA RUBIA. HISTORIA DE LA PESETA.

​ @Barcelona Memory You can share our videos:    / barcelonamemory   If you'd like to make a small contribution to support the channel: https://es.tipeee.com/barcelona-memory. The peseta has been with us all our lives until its exchange for the euro. It has had many nicknames: blonde, bald, girl, pela… it has been made in silver, bronze, iron, aluminum, even cardboard. It no longer has any value, it is no longer exchanged even at the Bank of Spain, and it only survives as an unofficial currency in the Sahrawi Republic… THIS IS ITS HISTORY Originally, it was a Barcelona silver coin minted during the War of the Spanish Succession to finance Archduke Charles's faction. It was worth 2 silver reales; it was a small coin; in Catalan, it was called "peseta." Others believe the word comes from the diminutive of peso. During the War of Independence, in 1808, Joseph I Bonaparte minted the first provincial currency with the official name of the peseta in the Seca de Barcelona. During those years, the first duros, equivalent to 5 pesetas, appeared in Girona (1807-1814). In 1844, the silver real was proposed as the official currency, but the reform was not implemented due to a change of government. In 1864, the silver escudo was imposed on the reales. A year later (1865), the Latin Monetary Union was created, led by France, with the intention of implementing a common European currency and adopting the Decimal Metric System. This union lasted until 1927, when fluctuations in national economies, fluctuating metal values, and the abandonment of the gold standard made its continuation difficult. However, in 1979, an attempt was once again made to establish a single currency for Europe, the ECU. Until 1868, the peseta was one of more than twenty legal tender coins: reales, silver reales, vellón reales, 2 reales, 8 reales, half reales, pesos, duro pesos, doubloons, half doubloons, 4 doubloons, and the Luises, which the French brought during the War of Independence. During the reign of Isabel II, pesetas were minted to pay the soldiers fighting against the Carlists (First Carlist War). They began to be called "peseteros," a term still used today. After the replacement of Isabel II (1868), during the provisional government of Francisco Serrano, the circulation of coins bearing Isabel II's image was avoided. Furthermore, the country wished to join the Latin Monetary Union. The peseta was chosen because, like the franc and the lira, it contained five grams of silver. With the peseta as the national currency, the escudo disappeared... but not the real, which was equivalent to 50 cents of pesetas. Laureano Figuerola, Minister of Finance in that government, and his Undersecretary of Finance, Barcelona native Joaquim María Sanromà i Creus, established the peseta as the official currency in just 11 days. Figuerola (1816-1903) was a Catalan from Calaf who had settled in Barcelona in 1823. He was married to Teresa Barrau, daughter of a family that owned the first gas factory in Girona and widow of a member of the Bosch family, owners of a factory of indianas. Their family estate, Can Figuerola, was in the then town of Horta, just outside Barcelona. With the new monetary exchange rate and free trade measures such as the abolition of internal customs, the liberalization of foreign trade, and a reform of the tax system, it was hoped the country's economy would revive, although the Catalan industrial sector and grain producers turned against them, unwilling to compete with foreign companies. Figuerola wrote in his Memoirs that "a few Catalan manufacturers and just as many Biscayan hardware stores had the country in their grasp." His second-in-command, Joaquim María Sanromá, complained about the attitude of the industrial bourgeoisie, which pressured the government based on their private interests. Ultimately, Figuerola left the ministry to become, first, a senator (1870) and then president of the senate (1872), before leaving politics (1881) to become the first president of the Free Institution of Education. First, 5-peseta silver coins were minted. Each coin weighed 25 grams; 40 5-peseta coins weighed 1 kilo of silver. The most widely circulated was the 10-cent bronze coin. One side featured a rampant lion, which the people considered a simple dog, hence its first nickname: "the fat bitch." The smaller 5-cent coin was called the "small bitch" (1870). During these years, paper money began to be printed. 1-peseta coins were not minted again until the Restoration. Amadeo de Saboya (1871-1873) stamped his likeness on the coins. To read the end of this story, you can visit our website: www.barcelonamemory.com