Oh What A Time... -  #72 Currencies (Part 2)

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed from yesterday! This week we’re talking about cold hard cash, moolah, readies: Currencies. We’ll be chatting about worker’s pay tokens, pieces of eight and the creation of banknotes! And we’re also discussing how on earth swimming got going? And just how easy is it to swim the channel? If you’d like to get in touch with the show you can do so at: [e-mail] If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is part two of Currencies. Let's get on with the show. So today, lovely boys, I'm going to talk to you about pieces of eight and the incredible impact they had on currencies around the world. Now when you hear the phrase, pieces of eight. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. Like the parrot. Be sure you mate. There you go. That was good.

But generally what are you thinking about when you hear the phrase pieces of eight? What's the world that comes into your mind? Pirates. Pirates indeed. Yeah, pirates, parrots, treasure, all that pieces of eight. What's the world that comes into your mind? Pirates. Pirates, indeed. Pirates, parrots, treasure, all that sort of stuff. Now, the reason we think of that is because of the Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, who made the association famous in his late 19th century adventure story, Treasure Island. Now, have you read Treasure Island? It is one of the greatest books I've ever read. It is so impossibly exciting. It's brilliant. Any listeners who haven't read it, read it now. It is fantastic.

Will Barron I've either read Treasure Island or Robinson Crusoe and I can never remember which one it was, but it was a very, very long time ago. But either way, don't really want to be stuck on a desert island. Yes. One of my, weirdly, one of my happy go-to dreams is when I'm going to sleep at night, and I will think about this actively, is me as a pirate.

It's one of my safe places. Weirdly, I'm never particularly high up the rankings either. I'm never the captain. I'm always just like a mid-shipman. So tell me what's happening. So it's normally out at sea in a storm and we're on our way. I'm rocking as I'm telling you this story. And we're on our way to sort of seek our fortune, find treasure. We never really attack any other boats. It's quite an unviolent journey.

But it's just, I am a pirate and I know that I'm dressed as a pirate and there's a Jolly Roger above me. Will Barron Are you a pirate or a sailor? Will Barron I'm a pirate. Very much a pirate, yeah. Will Barron So it doesn't very much pirate. Because it doesn't sound like you're doing much pirating. Or piracy. Will Barron We land and we find treasure. We often find buried treasure. It's really weird that I'm avoiding violence in the telling of this story, but I find it

a really safe thing that I go to a lot is me as a pirate. And what are your responsibilities on this boat? Sort of general camaraderie. So you're on this pirate ship for morale and banter. I sometimes have the parrot, which is quite nice. Jimmy Fivebelly's gazes mate mate. Gazza's, yes. Who you would take with him to Latiu. You're the Jimmy Fivebelly's of the sea.

I'm never allowed in the crow's nest. I think that's quite interesting. That says a lot about how people view me and my ability to not fall out of a crow's nest. Now in Treasure Island, Long John Silver, who is like the main pirate, accompanied by his pet parrot Captain Flint, was a great collector of the Spanish coin Pieces of Eight. Okay, here's a quote from the book. Here's Captain Flint. I calls my parrot Captain Flint after the famous buccaneer. Here's Captain Flint predicted success for our voyage. What new captain? And the pirate would say with great rapidity,

Pieces of eight, pieces of eight, pieces of eight, till you wondered that it was not out of breath, or till John threw his pankerchief over the cage. So there's been this idea from this one story that almost the pieces of eight are that it's kind of the stuff of stories. People don't kind of realize that it was an actual coin. It had a huge impact on currency today. In fact, do you know how vitally important Piece of Eight was? I did not know this until I researched this. I had no idea. Why is it such an important coin? I'm going to guess it's literally made of gold. No, but a good guess. Ellis?

Was it the highest denomination? They're literally made of gold. No, but a good guess. Ellis? Was it the highest denomination? No, it was the first ever global currency. Really? The first ever global coin. It was a silver coin, or piece, worth eight Spanish reals – that's why it's called pieces of Eight, established as such because of the stability of its silver content. So it was a very strong coin, approximately 25.5 grams of silver in it, and it began to be minted by the Spanish crown in 1497 and then became, as I say, this first global

currency. And interestingly, back then, coins were valued by their actual weight in silver or gold, not just what they look like. Spanish coins were preferred over other currencies as well. This is really interesting because they had a patterned edge which prevented dishonest traders from shaving slivers of coins out without being detected. This is one of the crimes you people used to do back then. Actually, it wasn't really a crime. You could get away with it. into out without being detected. So this is one of the crimes you people used to do back then. Actually, it wasn't really a crime. You could get away with it. You would take a coin and because the value is in the metal in it, you would shave off the edge and secretly take away little bits

of metal that you could then melt down and sell on yourself at a later date. But because the Spanish coins had this patterned edge, it was hard to do that. Will Barron It's going to just say a theory that I always had growing up? I always thought when I got my birthday money, I wonder if I could just get a pair of scissors and just chop a tiny bit off all the notes and then make a new note. Well, Chris. Yeah. Is that quantitative easing? You have stumbled into my next point. How do you think during this period

they gave change with the pieces of eight? What happened? What was the... What was the... Cut a little bit off? Yes. So they would literally cut the coins into eight pieces or bits. Hence, the British called the Spanish dollar a piece of eight. So you would buy something or someone someone would buy something from you, and if there's any change needed, you would cut the coin into the appropriate size of change required, and you would hand that back. Which, I think we can agree, would be an incredible ball egg today. If that was how you were having to give change. If you're in the corner shop, you haven't got the right amount for something, you're getting your pliers out, you're cutting out your coin, you're buying your watches. Can you imagine the cubes?

something, you're getting your pliers out, you're cutting out your coin, you're buying your watches. So this is what would happen. You would take your coin, you chop it up, hence the phrase pieces of eight. Now, given its stability as a coin, the piece of eight became widely used on all Spanish trade routes. This is how it started to spread around the globe, particularly those between Europe and the Americas. To create these coins, vast silver mines were opened in modern day Bolivia, Peru, Mexico, also further afield in India, China, and the Philippines. So much so that the piece of eight served as a basis not only for the Latin American peso and the North American dollar, but also the Chinese yuan, the Japanese yen, the Malaysian

ringgit and the French piastra, which itself was used as a colonial currency across the Middle East, North Africa and Indochina. In fact, the word piastra was invented by Venetian traders who took a piece of eight with them, or pieces of eight more to the point, to the Ottoman Empire as a tradable currency. Now, if peso and piastra were easily recognized as kind of the corruption of the piece of eight, where does the American dollar get its name from? I hear you ask. Well, let's find out. The word dollar comes from another coin, one minted not in Spain or even America's, but in Bohemia, which is the modern day Czech Republic. This second coin was known as the, this is really hard to pronounce, the Joachimistala,

which was reflecting its origins in the silver mines in Joachimistal, which is in St Joachim's Valley in the Ore Mountains separating the Czech Republic from Germany. Now, this coin, which I'm sure I've pronounced wrong, has the equivalent silver value to that of a piece of eight and so could be used interchangeably. So there was this second coin that was mass produced and had the same value as a piece of eight and could be interchanged. And since this coin was a mouthful to describe, the word eventually shortened to tala in Germany, tola in Czech and Slovenian, talero in Spanish, and dálda in Dutch. You can hear the sound dollar coming through in a lot of those words. That's where it came from. And meanwhile, the pieces of eight also had a huge impact

on the American dollar. Do you want to guess what impact the piece of eight had? So if the name dollar came from this other coin that was circulating at the time, what did the piece of eight do to impact the dollar that we know today? Something about cents? Not cents. Cent quarters? Ellis, any guess? I've got no idea.

The pieces of eight provided the dollar sign. If it wasn't for the piece of eight, the dollar sign would not exist. The precise origins of the symbols are a bit obscure, but most historians agree it probably derives from the abbreviation used by hard-working Spanish scribes. So originally, Peso was shortened to P with a tiny little S, and the P and the S were eventually printed over each other. However, since that was difficult to read, the scribe simply wrote an S with a vertical strike through it. That is basically where they think the dollar sign came from. Being a scribe on coins must have been a really hard job, incidentally.

Will Barron Also, very little room for error. If you make a mess of it, that coin has gone to waste. Will Barron Completely. Mason Fiery So I reckon there'd have been big punishments for people messing up inscriptions on coins. Will Barron Also quite gawking to be underpaid whilst making money. In terms of the cruel jobs from history. That must be up there. Mason Fiery Of course.

Will Barron All of which brings us to the creation of the US dollar, which is the most powerful currency in the world today, the basis of the global economy. It was created by Alexander Hamilton as Treasury Secretary in 1792, modeled by him. Seen his musical. Indeed, and modeled by him on the Spanish piece of eight. It made sense to Hamilton and his colleagues as an American currency, distinct from the British pound sterling and the French revolutionary Asignat, which is quite a turbulent coin at the time. So the piece of eight survived and is regenerated into a new currency for a new soon to be industrial

age. So it's amazing this one coin, this piece of eight that basically became popular because of the patterns around it, people's inability to steal and shave money off it, also the quality in which it was built, the fact that it maintained its structure and could be taken around the world without degrading, then had this impact on all these other currencies and indeed the dollar sign and the word dollar from its rival currency still exists today because of these currencies of the time.

Will Barron I've been getting pieces of it wrong for a very long time. I thought it was maybe a pirate's nickname for a coin. Will Barron Yes. Will Barron And that's why the pirate kept saying it. I had no idea it was of such global significance. Will Barron Absolutely. I thought it was like slang for loot, for treasure basically. Will Barron Yeah, yeah. I thought it was like slang for, for treasure basically. Yeah, yeah. I thought like sort of bucks or, you know, mula or whatever, whatever you might

use as a nickname for money. Yeah, like secure with a bag or so. The kind of stuff. All the phrases we use, yeah. Secure with a bag? Do you think you're a Grime MC? Yes. Another thing Ellis thinks he could do quite easily. Yes, you've got to secure the bag. You've got to secure the bag. If you're not going to, who is? Exactly. Swag. Loot. Yeah, I had no idea it was an actual coin. I'm amazingly impressed with

that. Will Barron Very briefly, I'm going to quickly look up slang for money. Okay, here's a little game. This will take two seconds. Okay. I'm going to read out five. One of them won't be real. I'll make one up and you have to guess which it is, okay? You ready? Cha-ching, bones, beehive, shoes, bankroll.

Shoes. Correct. Well done. Shoes? What? I'll be honest, I was meagre-less and I panicked. All right then. Ellis is now Googling. No, no. What do you, slang terms for money? Yeah.

Right. I'll give you one more. I'll give you three this time. Moola, Boodle or Malcoms. Malcoms. I'm not very good at this. All right then. Boodle. Yeah. Scratch. Clams. Wallop or bacon. Scratch.

Scratch. No, scratch incredibly is, yeah, wallop. Which one was it? Oh, wallop is cash, isn't it? Is it? I just made that up. Unfortunately, you've made one up, which is correct. The American slang term scratch, many can be traced back to 1914 but nobody knows whether the itchy word was first used to refer to cash. I don't know. So I wonder if the Americans still use the word scratch to mean money. I've never heard that before.

Absolutely. It's a fun game. Feel free to play at home. That was a good fun game. That's pieces of cake. God, I really enjoyed that. Yeah, I paid him 80 wallops. Oh, he's doing very well. No, he's got a podcast. He makes a million wallops a week. We've all done it. We have all put money through the washing machine. In the old days back when notes were still paper, it was an absolute disaster. I remember doing that at university and I was absolutely gutted.

I was skinned. I lost ten quid. And you know, I think a lot of people have put money through a spin cycle. It's much less of a problem now because they're made of polymer. So banknotes now are incredibly hard wearing. And I remember them coming in. People didn't like it. Banknotes, when I was a kid, you could scrunch them up, you could tear them. I remember taking banknotes in that were selloted together to the bank to ask for a replacement. Yeah, that's what I did when I chopped that birthday money up to make an extra note. I remember when the really shiny plastic notes came in, they did weird me out a bit.

They felt wrong. came in, they did weird me out a bit. I did like that. They felt wrong. Yes. I first saw one of those in Singapore and someone told me they were invented because there was a large fishermen population and the fishermen were always going in the water and getting the money, ruining the money. Oh. Oh really?

Yeah. So they were like, we need to create a new, Oh, this could be absolute rubbish. Do let us know. Hello there. It does feel like nonsense, but I'm happy to... I like it. Well, it begs the question, doesn't it? Who invented banknotes? Now, several civilizations come up with the idea of the banknote, a piece of paper passed in exchange for goods or a service, which was a symbol of the promise to pay the cost in currency at some later appointed date. I hereby promise to pay the bearer, I think that's what it says on British banknotes.

These have been around for thousands of years, perhaps as far back as ancient Babylon, but a banknote, which has an inherent value of its own, is something else and its origins lie in medieval China and the Song Dynasty. So coins, as we all know, are heavy, especially when you need to carry a lot of them around. Hence we have single coins for larger denominations.

A pound coin isn't particularly cumbersome, is it? Certainly not as cumbersome as a pound with the pennies, et cetera, that's the sort of principle of it. And this was the principle that lay behind the invention of paper money. So Chinese merchants were fed up with carrying coin purses, which does sound like a bit of a humble brag. Oh god, it's so annoying carrying these huge bags full of heavy money. Oh, what

a rub it. Oh, I've got a bad back because I'm so rich. I must be making such a racket. I'm sorry, jangle, jangle, jangle. I'm so sorry. I'm convinced this affected my hearing, actually. Honestly, just the constant jungle of coins. So Chinese merchants, especially when it came to things like big tick items, they were like, listen, it's inefficient for me to pay for this with lots and lots of coins. They wanted something lighter that would do the job in a much simpler way that they could carry rather than trust to a handing agent or a storehouse. So the answer was the banknote, which came to be called the jiausi, then the qianyin, and later still the huizi.

And the last was backed by governments and began to be issued in 1160 CE. So jiausi notes were introduced in the early 11th century. However, with a currency printer established for this purpose in Sichuan in 1024 CE, so each note printed there was done by hand, which is why I think I could have done it using wooden blocks and stamps, which was a very labour intensive process, given that the paper was also made by hand from bark or bamboo. So within a hundred years the state had stepped in to guarantee supply and to monopolise the system for its own end. Will Barron What's interesting Ellis, very briefly,

it's almost that at that stage I think they're like little pieces of art really aren't they? Everything's made by hand. It feels almost different from currency. To me it feels like a historical arte, which is something more than just that. Yeah, imagine you've been working for hours in a paddy field and then you get paid in a note and you're like, do you know what? It'd be a shame to spend this actually. I think I might frame this. This is absolutely beautiful. Exactly.

So one of the Mongol emperors. They tied the value of the notes of precious metal, such as gold and silver. And this was happening all over the world at certain points. So under state control, production of paper money intensified even to the point of inflation. Oh wow. So that in addition, because obviously, prior to that, people were bartering. So they'd be like, you know, I really like your carrots. I'll swap you some carrots for my, you know, rice or for my cow or whatever. And they're trying to work out how many...

For my cow? Yeah, you're trying to work out how many carrots... Whoever is bartering that really is... Oh yeah, yeah. They're gonna regret that in the morning. You need a lot of carrots. Okay, fine, yeah. And also you need to do a lot And also you need to do something with it.

Like, I've got to make a massive carrot soup. Carrot and coriander. The only thing I've got is my coin. A friend of mine, he was unemployed in South Wales in the early 80s. He was like, because no one had any money at all, because youth unemployment in South Wales valleys in the early 80s was so high. He said we basically went back to bartering. He was like, I've got a bass guitar amp, you've got a camera, I'd like a camera, you'd like a bass guitar amp, money is pointless, let's

just swap. Wow, that's amazing. So there were currency printers, established Nanki in Chengdu, Hangzhou and Huizhou. And these these printers, they were employing thousands of workers. So the Xishuan printer, by contrast, had originally dealt only with regional demand, was more modest in its scale. Now, as with any currency form, two key issues arose with banknotes. So the underlying value being backed up by a stable authority. So that is crucial.

And who has the authority to print money? So when paper currency emerged in China in the 10th century, it was handled primarily by private merchants. Now, this led to a big problem. This meant a multiplicity of different notes circulating through the system, all of which were vulnerable if the backing backing company collapsed. It's a bit like even though they are legal tender in England, people who've just crossed the border from Scotland with Scottish banknotes, taxi drivers are like, oh I'm not taking that

mate. Yeah. Even today when I have a Scottish banknote in my possession I'm like, oh this is going to be a nightmare. Shit. Yeah. This bloody monopoly money. Yeah.

So to standardise the private system, the largest merchants in Sichuan came together to form the Paper Note Bank. So it was this institution which provided the model for the Nationalised Bank in 1023 CE and the aforementioned printer the following year. But that still did not establish clear control of manufacture. Because obviously everyone, anyone with a set of printing blocks could potentially make a banknote. So the answer was a series of counterfeit prevention measures, including black and red inks, in added fibres, 10 seals printed on the top of the paper and elaborate visual designs.

At this point, I'm beginning to lose confidence that I could start counterfeiting money. Because I've had a look at some of these designs and yeah, no chance. And that's not really that much different to the security measures used in today's... Of course you don't have a right in Chinese, do you, either? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's falling apart. So that's not really much different to the security measures used in today's polymer Bank of England notes. So I've had a look at them. They're incredibly ornate. So this bill, I'm looking at one of them and it says this bill may be used in place of 77,000 WEN of metal coins. And it's

got a picture, which is a depiction of a trading scene. So the image below this, it's got the scene at the bottom together with the official information elsewhere in the design, which in effect tells the bearer and the receiver that this piece of paper has got value. So eventually the idea of paper money backed by the state as legal tender spread to the Middle East and to Europe carried on the Silk Road under the trade routes. One of those who endeavoured to explain the system to Europeans was none other than Marco Polo, who witnessed it in Houston, the reign of Kublai Khan. Marco Polo wrote, All these pieces of paper issued with as much solemnity and authority as if they

were pure gold or silver. Anyone forging it would be punished with death. Everybody takes them readily, for wheresoever a person may go throughout the great Khan's dominions, he shall find these pieces of paper and shall be able to transact all sales and purchases as if they were coins of pure gold." Wow. Because that's what you need with money. So you need someone to back it. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, you know, almost always the state. And also you need them to look the same and

for them not to be perishable. Because obviously most people, like I read a history of banking quite recently, a book called Why Can't We Just Print More Money? And a book called Can't We Just Print More Money? And it makes the point that lots of people like mackerel, but you couldn't have mackerel as a currency because it would go off. And it's too tasty. Yeah, it's too tasty. Yeah, it's too tasty. Stop eating your pocket money. You'll regret it.

So you need money to retain the same value so that you can buy stuff with it all over the country. And it's got to be a metric, like a unit of measurement so that you know that if you're buying, I don't know, oven chips in a supermarket in Kent, it will be worth the, basically the same, whether you're in Newcastle or, you know, Milton Keynes. Will Barron If you bought oven chips and you've still got a few mackerel left, that's only heading one way, isn't it? Straight home. Jason Vale I would say that's one of the great tragedies

of modern life is that things cost basically the same everywhere. In my lifetime, I remember the early 90s doing the cash and carry in Calais with my dad. There was a party coming up. You'd go over there with your mum and you'd load up the car full of beer de Alsace. It was cheap because it was so much cheaper. Not really the case anymore, is it? It's all basically

the sameish price. Now, the Carnes notes, to get back to currency, were known as Yuan Shao and they had an unlimited lifespan. They were printed from a central press situated eventually in Canbalic, in effect the centre of modern day Beijing. From October 1260, the notes were backed by silver, thus they overtook coins to become the dominant form of currency using Khan's China. And just like the Bank of England's promise, turn up at Threadneedle Street in London and exchange worn or torn or washing machine banknotes for new ones. A couple of Khan's currency printer would also exchange old notes." So they've been doing it in China for 900 years.

That's incredible. It's incredible, isn't it? Amazing. I didn't know that you could turn up at Threadneedle Street either. If you've got a torn note, you can turn up there and they'll swap it, will they? Yeah. I think they'll probably tell you to go to the nearby nut west. But I think you can in principle. If you refuse to leave long enough, someone might just do it for you.

Yeah. That's really interesting. I reckon it'd be quite a cool place to work, Threadneedle Street. Yeah. Because the Bank of England's gold reserves are there. Yes. So it's only, you know, you'd be very close to an absolutely fabulous amount of money.

It should be quite cool, I think. Have you ever spent any time in Loudon? Here's a little bit of Essex. Mason Fierce In Essex? Will Barron Yeah, in Essex. There is a mint there. Mason Fierce Oh, yeah. Will Barron And it's on near the, and I'm sure people in the Essex area will bang me up. In Louton, there's this mint where they generate bank

notes and they're actually, the roads have been engineered to take this into account in that you can only get the M11 into London from Loughton and not outside. You can't get the M11 to go back out into the countryside precisely to stop robberies at the Mint and prevent people having a getaway. That rumour has ripped around, Essex. Well, there's a Royal Mint in Llanthrasant in South Wales, not far from Cardiff, I suppose, Llanthrasant. Do you want to hear my Llan Trescent Royal Mint joke? Absolutely.

Go on. Royal Mint in Llan Trescent eh? The polo is the mint with a hole. Llan Trescent is the hole with the mint. What's good is so many listeners will know what Chlantresant's like and that it is a ... Yeah, just, just, just... ... they're going to ease a hole. Just accept it. Just accept it and move on.

My apologies to the good people of Chlantresant. Sorry, sorry, God. I mean they're my constituency. I don't want to upset people from Lundresund for God's sake. That's it for this week. Thank you so much for listening. That was Currencies. If you've got any other Currencies gossip, any rubbish jokes about Currencies's mints, you know what to do. If you believe that I can swim the channel, don't bother emailing in because we all believe it. Equally, L is one of the 18th century's greatest forgers, or was it 19th century?

Doesn't matter, any era, pop him there, he will do some great forging. If you want to get in touch with the show, you can email hello at owhatatime.com and don't forget, bonus episodes, all that good stuff, next week's episode at early, etc. etc. owototime.com and don't forget bonus episodes all that good stuff next week's episode at early etc etc owototime.com but otherwise we'll see you next week thanks so much guys take care bye bye So So Thank you.