Editing Doubloon (section)

==History==

[[Spanish America]]n gold coins were minted in one-half, one, two, four, and eight escudo denominations, with each [[Spanish escudo|escudo]] worth around two [[Spanish dollar]]s or $2. The two-escudo (or $4 coin) was the "doubloon" or "[[pistole]]", and the large eight-escudo (or $16) was a "quadruple pistole".

English nomenclature was confusing, though, since the $8 "double pistole" was the doubloon in English usage, while the $16 "quadruple pistole" was the doubloon in American colonial usage. This was disambiguated in references by calling the $4 the ''common doubloon'' or simply ''doubloon'', the $8 the ''doubloon of four (escudos)'', and the $16 the ''doubloon of eight''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MJnPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA319|title=The Universal Cambist, and Commercial Instructor: Being a Full and Accurate Treatise on the Exchanges, Monies, Weights and Measures of All Trading Nations and Their Colonies; with an Account of Their Banks, Public Funds, and Paper Currencies|last1=Kelly|first1=Patrick|date=1821|access-date=2021-11-29|archive-date=2023-01-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114124333/https://books.google.com/books?id=MJnPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA319|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Spanish America]] did the same (see ''[[:es:doblón]]'', [[Brasher doubloon]]).

After the [[War of 1812]], doubloons of eight were valued in [[Nova Scotia]] at the rate of £4 and became the dominant coin there.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=eGqeFWhr-5wC&dq=doubloon&pg=PA138 McCullough, Alan Bruce. ''Money and Exchange in Canada to 1900'', Dundurn, 1984] {{ISBN|9780919670860}}</ref>

Doubloons, when exchanged for [[Spanish dollar|$4]] or 32 ''[[Spanish real|reales]]'' in silver, traded at a high gold-silver ratio of 16 (since each real contained 3.833 g of 0.917 silver). Since the prevailing ratio in Europe was 15 in most of the 18th century, doubloons occasionally traded at a discount to this amount, at 30–32 ''reales''.

In Spain, doubloons were current for $4 (four ''[[Spanish dollar|duros]]'', or 80 ''reales de vellón'') up to the middle of the 19th century. [[Isabella II of Spain]] switched to an ''escudo''-based coinage with decimal ''reales'' in 1859, and replaced the 6.77-gram ''doblón'' with a new heavier ''doblón'' worth $5 (five ''duros'', or 100 ''reales'') and weighing 8.3771 grams (0.268 troy ounces). The last Spanish doubloons (showing the denomination as 80 ''reales'') were minted in 1849. After their independence, the former [[Spanish viceroyalty|Spanish Viceroyalties]] of Mexico, Peru and New Granada continued to mint doubloons.