Remembering The Peseta

Remembering The Peseta

It’s many years since the Peseta was replaced by the Euro, although some old timers still do the mental conversion, especially when talking larger sums for cars or houses, and in some shops you’ll still get a receipt showing the peseta equivalent to a transaction.

Here are some interesting and fun facts about Spain’s old currency:

  • The Peseta was introduced in 1869, when it replaced the Escudo
  • Unlike most currencies, there was never a symbol for the Peseta. It was merely shortened to pta. or ptas.
  • Many people don’t know that like the Euro, the peseta was subdivided into Centimos. But as the currency devalued they became irrelevant. The last 50 Centimo coin was minted in 1980.
  • The actual exchange rate at the time of the change from the peseta to the Euro was fixed at 166.386 to the Euro
  • For years after the changeover date, calculators sold here had the conversion on a single button
  • In the last years of the currency notes were available as 200, 500 1000, 2000, 5000 and 10,000 denominations
  • When we talked money, we’d often use the word “mil,” which means a thousand in Spanish. So something which was 4,000 Ptas, would be described as “4 Mil.”
  • The bank of Spain believes there are 1.7 Billion ptas still “out there”

The first car we bought on the island cost us 1.6 Million and our first house was 32 Million – it somehow seemed exotic and more exciting when you were talking in those numbers!

Related articles. Buying a house in Lanzarote

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