| Show THE MARK the bankers encyclopedia Mo monthly athly A st afi louis lais exchange calls attention to the singularity of our custom of placing the dollar mark before the figures figu rep instead of after without div me ing the real explanation A high authority says that the explanation to is bound in the fact that in the colonial limes when we the word dollar was americanized its equivalent was waa the spanish price of eight or eight real later known as the york shi shilling lhing at first the abbreviation for or a dollar was waa the flure figure eight between two straight lines 1 lland then the two lines were drawn burough the 8 after a while the eight itself was changed just juet a little making the sign alga stand as a now in use this thia la is a highly probable explanation ln in all civilized countries money marks marka are in use and our st louis exchange throws some borne interest leg light on the custom when it sayel in every country which has hag a written language and a 6 system of coin age too toe abbreviation for the unite of value precedes the flo cloures ures in eng laud the pound mark S is faed in the same manner that thai the dollar mark Is ia tseu lu iu this country count rj while the same peculiarity la is noticeable to in germany where the abbreviation m for mark appears preceding the number just as aa the french abbreviation tr for irano franc is used in france it if the abbreviations are not used the legend is more apt to be correct we find fina that in mexico they 0 anve ve a 1 1 instead of a p aj 2 as one might expect and ia new Found land they have a plain two dollar piece so too in 10 france where the abbreviation is not used we find such euch pieces so as 10 francs 1120 0 O francs france and 40 1140 francs in germany they have a piece marked IX thaler I which is all very plain brutshe but ahe moment a clerk bookkeeper or other person makes an entry or iota dowa memorandum he be toile telle you that hiss tt is a ax X the english pound agn which in ia believed to be the oldest abbreviation now in use uee is 1 ur old initial letter by which the bo Wass expressed gounde po unde 1 just juet as aa we use we the silta ibb sv it has baa been that we use our money abbreviation bill backward akward because the roma B in expressing 61 pounds always said libra awba 11 instead of debem libra the beine pounds ton ten an and the he latter a ter 14 lam tb pound 12 when their initial it letter or character was used it alwayn preceded the ibe figures thus 10 iu ii ted of the reverse rever sf thus the whole world hava gotten in the habit of doing these b ackward bock wani |
