Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León

Facultad de Contaduría Pública y Administración

Administración de producción

Signo de pesos

Student:
Juan Guadalupe Orozco Guevara 1966361
Group: 3Ai
 Símbolo de pesos

The peso symbol represents various currencies in the world. It is a

widely used currency symbol that, generally speaking, people easily
identify.

At present, the symbol of pesos is one of the most used because it

represents the currencies of various countries around the world to
indicate both the pesos and the dollars of each nation.

For example, the US dollar, the Canadian dollar, the Australian dollar,
the Hong Kong dollar, the Mexican peso, the Argentine peso, the
Colombian peso, the Brazilian real or the Nicaraguan cordoba, among
others.

This symbol is composed of a letter "s" with a vertical bar that crosses
it, whose spelling is the following $.

The first coin to make use of this symbol was the Mexican peso,
between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Mexico was
still the Viceroyalty of New Spain and the processes of independence
were looming. Today the Mexican currency is still called peso and is
identified with the aforementioned symbol $.

On the other hand, the symbol of weights is also used in programming

languages, but with a totally different sense than monetary. Therefore,
computer keyboards or computers have this symbol.

Origin of the weight symbol

In America, during the time of the Spanish colony, coins were scarce
and payments for commercial exchanges were made by weight, so a
balance had to be carried everywhere.
The unit of weight was the "Castellano", a gold coin minted in Spain
whose weight corresponded to that of one hundredth of a pound of fine
gold, and which was popularly known as "peso de oro" or "peso". It
ceased to be minted in 1497, however, its weight remained as a
reference in the payment unit.
Subsequently, the silver weight called "real de a ocho", "peso de a
ocho" or "peso fuerte" was minted, whose value was less than the
weight of gold. Around the year 1535, the first coin was minted in
Mexico that was equivalent to the real of eight, known as peso.
Hence, the symbol of weight began to be used during the time of the
colony in America to refer to the real de a ocho Spanish or "hard
weight", approximately in the years that correspond to 1770.
Therefore, the most widespread theory about the possible origin of the
peso symbol derives from the graphic representation of the Spanish
real of eight.
The Spanish real de a ocho was a coin that was characterized by
being made with a high percentage of silver and having in its relief the
image of the Spanish coat of arms, which has a world and the Columns
of Hercules, on which the motto Plus Ultra is linked, which means
'beyond'.
For this reason, in principle the weight symbol was represented with
the disused symbol of the letter "s" with two vertical bars.
The real de a ocho was a currency of great use in the eighteenth
century in America, during the Spanish colonization, and in the United
States, when it was still a colony of the British Empire, and was known
as the Spanish dollar or Spanish daller.
In this way, the symbol pesos was used to represent the word ʽpesoʼ
and its later abbreviation written as ʽpsʼ, widely used between the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Later, the writing of its abbreviation was modified until the following
graphic representation was obtained.

Peso symbol and dollar symbol

In the United States, the symbol of pesos was adopted in 1792, since
the real of eight was widely used at that time.
However, the peso symbol should not be confused with the dollar
symbol. To differentiate them it is necessary to recognize the
nomenclatures of the ISO codes that have the currencies of the
countries that are identified with the symbol $.

For example, the Mexican peso is identified as MXN$, and the US

dollar as US$.