Kusíng, Salapî, Baryá, and Other Bread
Published May 21, 2018 00:05 am
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Updated May 21, 2018 00:05 am
By Dr. Jaime C. Laya
A HISTORICAL PIECE Spanish regime coins made into wedding arras.
I just discovered the kusing that I got 50 years ago in Palo Alto (California) as a graduate school memento. It’s a Philippine half-centavo that made me interested in history through coins. Before Magellan and Legaspi, our ancestors mainly bought and sold through barter. Small gold pellets (piloncitos) with a character interpreted as “Ma” and hollow gold bracelets or rings (“barter rings’) may also have been used as medium of exchange.
The Mexican silver tostón came with colonization, four-real coins called salapî by our indio ancestors—it still means money in Tagalog. The largest denomination was eight reals, the “pieces of eight” of pirate lore. It was equivalent to one peso and one dollar. Isang salapî was 50 centavos during my Lola’s time and Americans still call the half-dollar coin “two bits.”
With the Galleon Trade, Asian goods (silk, porcelain, spices, ivory, etc.) arrived in Manila for shipment across the Pacific. Silver mainly from Taxco (Mexico) and Potosi (Bolivia) were minted into coins or made into ingots and returned to Manila in payment. Much went on to trade goods’ suppliers in China, the Dutch East Indies, India, etc. Part (Real Situado) covered Philippine colonial government and church expenses; part ended up in Europe through the intricacies of trade and occasionally through piracy—in 1742, Englishman George Anson captured the silver-laden galleon Nstra. Sra. de Covadonga.
The first coins were roughly made. Silver or gold bars were chopped to established weights and stamped with a cross and the Spanish coat of arms, called cobs or macuquina and hilis-kalamay by indios for their irregular shapes.
Silver coins were in one, two, four, and eight reales but their value was high and small denominations were always short. In 1728, bronze and copper coins called barilla were authorized, hence today’s barya meaning small change.
The cobs were temptingly irregular and the cobs were often trimmed, shaved, or filed. This caused the minting (1732-1772) of the beautiful Pillar Dollars, Dos Mundos, or Columnarias. These were cheat-resistant round coins of standard weight and fineness with milled edges. Portrait coins with the profiles of Carlos III, Carlos IV, and Fernando VII replaced the Dos Mundos from 1772 to 1825. Cheating was still rampant, however, and Chinese traders put chop marks on coins as quality assurance.
Mexico revolted in 1815 and what to do with their and other revolting Spanish Latin American colonies’ coins became an issue. The solution was for offending coins to be overstamped such as to obliterate the ex-colonies’ names and to inscribe HABILITADO POR EL REY NSD FERN. VII (“Validated by the King Our Lord Don Fernando VII”). The stamping machine promptly conked out and in 1834, smaller counterstamps were used with “F.7” and “Y.II” for Fernando VII and Isabel II.
Someone had the bright idea of declaring coins with holes as non-legal tender but many had strung coins together as wedding “arras.” The solution was to counterstamp the hole. Lawyers probably caused the problem, devised the solution and charged fees coming and going.
Note: On one side of the Dos Mundos coins was the Spanish Coat of Arms and the inscription D.G. HISPAN ET IND REX (“By the Grace of God, King of Spain and the Indies” followed by the name of the King and on the other side were the two hemispheres between the Pillars of Hercules and the inscription UTRAQUE UNUM (“Both Worlds as One”) and PLUS ULTRA (“More Beyond”).
Comments are cordially invited, addressed to walangwala888@gmail.com
A HISTORICAL PIECE Spanish regime coins made into wedding arras.
I just discovered the kusing that I got 50 years ago in Palo Alto (California) as a graduate school memento. It’s a Philippine half-centavo that made me interested in history through coins. Before Magellan and Legaspi, our ancestors mainly bought and sold through barter. Small gold pellets (piloncitos) with a character interpreted as “Ma” and hollow gold bracelets or rings (“barter rings’) may also have been used as medium of exchange.
The Mexican silver tostón came with colonization, four-real coins called salapî by our indio ancestors—it still means money in Tagalog. The largest denomination was eight reals, the “pieces of eight” of pirate lore. It was equivalent to one peso and one dollar. Isang salapî was 50 centavos during my Lola’s time and Americans still call the half-dollar coin “two bits.”
With the Galleon Trade, Asian goods (silk, porcelain, spices, ivory, etc.) arrived in Manila for shipment across the Pacific. Silver mainly from Taxco (Mexico) and Potosi (Bolivia) were minted into coins or made into ingots and returned to Manila in payment. Much went on to trade goods’ suppliers in China, the Dutch East Indies, India, etc. Part (Real Situado) covered Philippine colonial government and church expenses; part ended up in Europe through the intricacies of trade and occasionally through piracy—in 1742, Englishman George Anson captured the silver-laden galleon Nstra. Sra. de Covadonga.
The first coins were roughly made. Silver or gold bars were chopped to established weights and stamped with a cross and the Spanish coat of arms, called cobs or macuquina and hilis-kalamay by indios for their irregular shapes.
Silver coins were in one, two, four, and eight reales but their value was high and small denominations were always short. In 1728, bronze and copper coins called barilla were authorized, hence today’s barya meaning small change.
The cobs were temptingly irregular and the cobs were often trimmed, shaved, or filed. This caused the minting (1732-1772) of the beautiful Pillar Dollars, Dos Mundos, or Columnarias. These were cheat-resistant round coins of standard weight and fineness with milled edges. Portrait coins with the profiles of Carlos III, Carlos IV, and Fernando VII replaced the Dos Mundos from 1772 to 1825. Cheating was still rampant, however, and Chinese traders put chop marks on coins as quality assurance.
Mexico revolted in 1815 and what to do with their and other revolting Spanish Latin American colonies’ coins became an issue. The solution was for offending coins to be overstamped such as to obliterate the ex-colonies’ names and to inscribe HABILITADO POR EL REY NSD FERN. VII (“Validated by the King Our Lord Don Fernando VII”). The stamping machine promptly conked out and in 1834, smaller counterstamps were used with “F.7” and “Y.II” for Fernando VII and Isabel II.
Someone had the bright idea of declaring coins with holes as non-legal tender but many had strung coins together as wedding “arras.” The solution was to counterstamp the hole. Lawyers probably caused the problem, devised the solution and charged fees coming and going.
Note: On one side of the Dos Mundos coins was the Spanish Coat of Arms and the inscription D.G. HISPAN ET IND REX (“By the Grace of God, King of Spain and the Indies” followed by the name of the King and on the other side were the two hemispheres between the Pillars of Hercules and the inscription UTRAQUE UNUM (“Both Worlds as One”) and PLUS ULTRA (“More Beyond”).
Comments are cordially invited, addressed to walangwala888@gmail.com