1575
The rebellious province of Holland started minting the lion coin.
READING A COIN
A Silver Coin with No Place at Home
There was once a silver coin disliked in its homeland for its low fineness. Yet, precisely because it had no place to belong, it embarked on a journey, from the Eastern Mediterranean to North America, making its mark upon the world. This is the long journey of the silver coin that bore the lion.
The Traveling Lion Coin in 3 Minutes
1See it
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It had no king's face or name. It was engraved with a lion and a holy verse.
1581
The coin was minted 6 years before they officially renounced the king.
The silver content was low. It was a coin to cover the costs of war.
About 3/4
Unpopular at home, it was used for foreign payments.
17th century
It became the go-to coin for trade in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The lion looked like a dog, and in Arabic, it was called 'the father of dogs'.
The Romanian leu and the Bulgarian lev get their names from this lion.
It also crossed over to North America, where it was called the Lion Dollar in English.
The standard of measurement was the Spanish 8 reales.
2In numbers
3/4
Fineness of the lion coin (approx.). It was lower than other silver coins from the same land.
27.7grams
Weight of the lion coin (approx.)
3What would you do?
You are a merchant in the Low Countries. Your purse has good silver coins and the lion coin, which has less silver. Which payment would you use the lion coin for?
Pick one
Domestic payments
If people could choose a good silver coin, no one would want to accept a bad one. The lion coin was unpopular at home.
Foreign payments
That's exactly what happened. Because it had no place at home, the lion coin was loaded onto ships and traveled from the Eastern Mediterranean all the way to North America.
The lion carried its name, and the Spanish 8 reales became the benchmark. The path a name travels and the role of a standard are two different things.
4Read more
A Coin Without a King
There is a silver coin. On its obverse, a knight holds a shield bearing a lion; on its reverse, a lion rampant. Yet, nowhere is there a portrait of a king. Not even the king's name is inscribed. Instead, what is engraved is a biblical verse: he who trusts in the Lord is not moved.
In 1575, the province of Holland, then in the midst of a revolt, began to strike this Leeuwendaalder, or Lion Daalder. It was a silver coin that stood not on the face of a king, but on a holy verse and a lion. The province would declare the king's deposition in 1581. On its coinage, this country stood without a king six years earlier.
The Disliked Silver Coin
However, this lion silver coin was not of noble birth. Its weight was approximately 27.7 grams, and its fineness was about three-quarters. This was clearly lower than the fineness of the Rijksdaalder circulating in the same Low Countries, which was 885 parts per thousand. This was a silver coin meant to finance the war.
As expected, it was disliked domestically. If one could choose a good silver coin, one would not want to keep a bad, low-fineness coin. This coin, avoided for domestic payments, was therefore used for payments abroad.
Bad Money Travels
Bad money, having no place at home, travels the world. From the ports of the Low Countries, ship after ship laden with lion silver coins set sail.
In the 17th-century Eastern Mediterranean, this silver coin became a standard for settlement in the Levant trade with the Ottoman Empire. The silver coins carried by ships from the Low Countries to eastern ports took root as local currency. In the Ottoman Empire, it was called the Asadi guruş. Meanwhile, in the Arabic-speaking world, it was called Abu Kalb, meaning "father of the dog," because the lion on the coin looked like a dog.
The lion's name even became that of national currencies. The Romanian and Moldovan Leu, and the Bulgarian Lev. Both live on today as currencies that owe their names to the lion on this silver coin.
The Lion That Carried a Name
The lion silver coin also crossed to the west. It circulated across the Atlantic, in the colony of New Amsterdam founded by people from the Low Countries, an area that would later become New York.
In English, it was called the Lion Dollar. The word "daalder" transformed into "dollar" in English speech. However, one must not tell a simple, linear story of this coin being the ancestor of the dollar. The standard silver coin in North America was, after all, the Spanish 8 reales.
The path of a name and the role of a standard coin are two different things. The lion carried the name, while the 8 reales became the yardstick.
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