America’s First Official Gold Coin 1788 Doubloon

America’s First Official Gold Coin

Before the U.S. began minting its own currency, the Spanish 2-escudos coin was one of a handful officially authorised as legal tender in the newly-formed United States of America. It contained about a fifth of an ounce of gold and was beautifully struck on some of the earliest coin presses.

In the New World, Spanish gold coins were minted in one, two, four, and eight escudo denominations. The two escudo piece was called a "pistole"; the large eight escudo coin was called a "quadruple pistole" or, at first, a double doubloon. English colonists would come to call it the Spanish doubloon.

This is my 1788 doubloon bellow.

After the War of 1812 doubloons were valued in Nova Scotia at the rate of £4 and became the dominant coin there
In Spain, doubloons were current up to the middle of the 19th century.

Isabella II of Spain replaced an escudo-based coinage with decimal reales in 1859, and replaced the 6.77-gram doubloon with a new heavier doubloon worth 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. The doubloons were legal tender in america until the mid-nineteenth century.