Silver Spanish Milled Dollar 2

Title: Silver Spanish Milled Dollar 2
Description: Silver Spanish Milled Dollar, also called the "pillar dollar" or 8 reales. It depicts arms of Castile and Leon with crown, marked PHILIP V D G HISPAN ET IND REX, meaning "Phillip the fifth by the grace of God king of Spain and India."
Reverse side shows 2 globes with the crown of Spain and ocean waves.

This particular coin, though badly eroded, shows evidence of attempted clipping (to cut the coin into “bits” or “pieces of eight”).
Pieces of eight were created when Spanish dollars were cut into eight pieces to make change. This was a popular practice in the British colonies, since they were not allowed to mint their own currency. Colonists often ran out of English money, so pieces of eight were their solution.
Date: 1740 CE
Identifier: 2008.036.001a
Source: Spain
Subject: Numismatics
Is Part Of: Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum