ABSTRACT
Currency: Until 1863 Uruguayan payments were made in pesos corrientes of 8 reales at 16 cuartos or at 100 centavos. Since the coinage of Uruguay was insignificant during the first half of the 19th century, mainly Spanish, Mexican and South American silver pesos (at 24.43 grammes of fine silver) and Portuguese and Brazilian patacones at 960 centavos were in circulation (5 pesos de plata or patacones = 6 pesos corrientes). In 1854 the circulating pesos were devalued by 1/24 so that they corresponded to 100 centavos from then on (4 pesos de plata or patacones = 5 pesos corrientes). By the Coin Act of June 23rd 1862 the bimetallism with the silver peso (peso de plata; 23.37 grammes of fine silver) and the doubloon (doblón de oro; 15.56 grammes of fine gold) of 10 pesos was introduced at the beginning of 1863. Payments were made either in gold coins (in the early 1870s primarily still in British sovereigns) or in different kinds of paper money. However, when this paper money was withdrawn from circulation until 1874 and then again from the late 1880s, because its value was fluctuating more or less in comparison with gold, and payments in effective currency were mostly made in gold, the gold standard prevailed (cf. NOBACK [1877], p. 1160; SWOBODA [1889], p. 627; SONNDORFER [1900], p. 234). At the same time, calculations were no longer made on the basis of the silver peso of 1862 but according to the unminted peso gold at 100 centavos, which corresponded to one-tenth part of the doubloon of 1862.
