fourscore = 80 Gettysburg address


This problem was critical as it adversely affected local commerce and forced
the colonists to turn to foreign coins, primarily Spanish American silver produced
in Mexico and Peru. The most widely used coin in the colonies was the eight reales
(piece of eight), primarily clipped underweight examples that had made their way
north from Mexico through the Bahamas. The eight reales
was the highes unit of Spanish silver in the New World, similar in size and weight
to the thalers of the various German states, the French écu, the Portuguese
cruzado and the ducatoon of Holland; colonists called the eight reales coin
a "dollar," from the Dutch"daalder" (a derivative of the German thaler).