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The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1869 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra (which had no national currency with legal tender).

The name of the currency comes from pesseta, the diminutive form of the word peça, which is a Catalan word that means piece or fraction. The first non-official coins which contained the word "peseta" were made in 1808 in Barcelona.

Traditionally, there was never a single symbol or special character for the Spanish peseta. Common abbreviations were "Pt", "Pta", "Pts" and "Ptas", sometimes using superior letters: "Ptas".

Common earlier Spanish models of mechanical typewriters had the expression "Pts" on a single type head, as a shorthand intended to fill a single type space (Pts) in tables instead of three (P+t+s).

Later, Spanish models of IBM electric typewriters also included the same type in its repertoire.

When the first IBM PC was designed in 1980, it included a "peseta symbol" "Pts" in the ROM of the Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) and Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) video output cards' hardware, with the code number 158. This original character set chart later became the MS-DOS code page 437. Some spreadsheet software for PC under MS-DOS, as Lotus 1-2-3, employed this character as the peseta symbol in their Spanish editions. Subsequent international MS-DOS code pages, like code page 850 and others, deprecated this character in favour of some other national characters.

In order to guarantee the interchange with previous encodings such as code page 437, the international standard Unicode includes this character as U+20A7 PESETA SIGN in its Currency Symbols block. Other than that, the use of the "peseta symbol" standalone is extremely rare, and has been outdated since the adoption of the euro in Spain.

In the version 1.0 of Unicode the character ₧ U+20A7 PESETA SIGN had two reference glyphs: a "Pts" ligature glyph as in IBM code page 437 and an erroneous P with stroke. In Unicode 2.0 the reference glyph P with stroke was erroneously displayed as the only symbol for peseta and was latter corrected to the Pts ligature and a separate character code was added for the peso sign.

Traditionally, there was never a single symbol or special character for the Spanish peseta. Common abbreviations were "Pt", "Pta", "Pts" and "Ptas", sometimes using superior letters: "Ptas".

Common earlier Spanish models of mechanical typewriters had the expression "Pts" on a single type head, as a shorthand intended to fill a single type space (Pts) in tables instead of three (P+t+s).

Later, Spanish models of IBM electric typewriters also included the same type in its repertoire.

The peseta was introduced in 1869 after Spain joined the Latin Monetary Union in 1868. The Spanish Law of June 26, 1864 decreed that in preparation for joining the Latin Monetary Union (set up in 1865), the peseta became a subdivision of the peso with 1 peso duro = 5 pesetas. The peseta replaced the escudo at a rate of 5 pesetas = 1 peso duro = 2 escudos.

The peseta was equal to 4.5 grams of silver, or 0.290322 grams of gold, the standard used by all the currencies of the Latin Monetary Union. From 1873, only the gold standard applied.

The political turbulence of the early twentieth century (especially during the years after the World War I) caused the monetary union to break up, although it was not until 1927 that it officially ended.

In 1959, Spain became part of the Bretton Woods System, pegging the peseta at a value of 60 pesetas = 1 U.S. dollar. In 1967, the peseta followed the devaluation of the British pound, maintaining the exchange rate of 168 pesetas = 1 pound and establishing a new rate of 70 pesetas = 1 U.S. dollar.

The peseta was replaced by the euro in 2002, following the establishment of the euro in 1999. The exchange rate was 1 euro = 166.386 pesetas.

King Philip II of Spain

Philip II (born May 21, 1527, Valladolid, Spain - died September 13, 1598, El Escorial), king of the Spaniards (1556–98) and king of the Portuguese (as Philip I, 1580–98), champion of the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation. During his reign the Spanish empire attained its greatest power, extent, and influence, though he failed to suppress the revolt of the Netherlands (beginning in 1566) and lost the “Invincible Armada” in the attempted invasion of England (1588).

Philip was the son of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. From time to time, the emperor wrote Philip secret memoranda, impressing on him the high duties to which God had called him and warning him against trusting any of his advisers too much. Philip, a very dutiful son, took this advice to heart. From 1543 Charles conferred on his son the regency of Spain whenever he himself was abroad. From 1548 until 1551, Philip traveled in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, but his great reserve and his inability to speak fluently any language except Castilian made him unpopular with the German and Flemish nobility.

Philip contracted four marriages. The first was with his cousin Maria of Portugal in 1543. She died in 1545, giving birth to the ill-fated Don Carlos. In 1554 Philip married Mary I of England and became joint sovereign of England until Mary’s death, without issue, in 1558. Philip’s third marriage, with Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of Henry II of France, in 1559, was the result of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559), which, for a generation, ended the open wars between Spain and France. Elizabeth bore Philip two daughters, Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566–1633) and Catherine Micaela (1567–97). Elizabeth died in 1568, and in 1570 Philip married Anna of Austria, daughter of his first cousin the emperor Maximilian II. She died in 1580. Her only surviving son became Philip III.

King of Spain

Philip had received the duchy of Milan from Charles V in 1540 and the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily in 1554 on the occasion of his marriage to Mary of England. On October 25, 1555, Charles resigned the Netherlands in Philip’s favour and on January 16, 1556, the kingdoms of Spain and the Spanish overseas empire. Shortly afterward Philip also received the Franche-Comté. The Habsburg dominions in Germany and the imperial title went to his uncle Ferdinand I. At this time Philip was in the Netherlands. After the victory over the French at Saint-Quentin (1557), the sight of the battlefield gave him a permanent distaste for war, though he did not shrink from it when he judged it necessary.

After his return to Spain from the Netherlands in 1559, Philip never again left the Iberian Peninsula. From Madrid he ruled his empire through his personal control of official appointments and all forms of patronage. Philip’s subjects outside Castile, thus, never saw him, and they gradually turned not only against his ministers but also against him. This happened particularly in the Netherlands, in Granada, and in Aragon.

Obverse: Portrait of Philip II at left and Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial at lower centre. Reverse: The Chair of Philip II in San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Philip II liked to watch them build his palace. Someone carved him a seat in a big granite boulder on a ridge overlooking the whole Escorial valley. On warm spring days a carriage would take him to the spot and he would mount the boulder and discuss the progress of construction with his architect, or just daydream. Watermark: Head of Felipe II. Printer: Bradbury Wilkinson & Co. Ltd., New Malden, Surrey, England. Size: 140 x 100 mm. Circulation: 75,000,000 notes. In circulation from June 1927.