Pennsylvania pound

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The pound was the currency of Pennsylvania until 1793. Initially, the British pound circulated, supplemented from 1723 by local paper money. Although these notes were denominated in pounds, shillings and pence, they were worth less than sterling, with 1 Pennsylvanian shilling = 9 pence sterling.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania issued Continental currency denominated in £sd and Spanish dollars, with 1 dollar = 7 shillings 6 pence. In March 1793, it issued paper bills of credit to the amount of $60,000, made them a legal tender in all payments on pain of confiscating the debt or forfeiting the commodity, imposed sufficient penalties on all persons who presumed to make any bargain or sale on cheaper terms in case of being paid in gold or silver, and provided for the gradual reduction of the bills by enacting that one-eighth of the principal, as well as the whole interest, should be paid annually. Pennsylvania made no loans but on land security or plate deposited in the loan office, and obliged borrowers to pay 5 % for the sums they took up. The scheme worked so well that, in the latter end of the year, the government emitted bills to the amount of $150,000 on the same terms. In 1729 there was a new emission of $150,000 to be reduced one-sixteenth a year. Pennsylvania was one of the last – if not the very last – provinces that emitted a paper currency. The continental currency was replaced by the U.S. dollar at a rate of 1000 continental dollars = 1 U.S. dollar in 1793.