Editing Mexican peso (section)

===Precursor===
{{See also|Spanish dollar|Spanish colonial real|Mexican real|Spanish escudo}}
[[File:8 reales Mexico - 1840 GoPJ.png|thumb|250px|Silver peso or 8 reales of "cap and ray" design used for East Asian trade, 1840]]

The currency system in use in [[Spanish America]] from the 16th to 19th centuries consisted of silver ''[[Spanish colonial real|reales]]'', weight 3.433&nbsp;grams and fineness {{frac|67|72}} = 93.1%, as well as gold [[Spanish escudo|escudos]], weight 3.383&nbsp;g and fineness {{frac|11|12}} = 91.7%. By the 19th century the silver real weighed 3.383&nbsp;g, fineness {{frac|65|72}} = 90.3%, while the gold escudo's fineness was reduced to 21 [[karat]]s or {{frac|21|24}}, or 87.5% fine.

15 or 16 silver ''reales'' were worth a gold ''escudo'', and eight-real coins of 24.44&nbsp;g fine silver were widely called ''pesos'' in Spanish America and ''[[Spanish dollar|dollars]]'' in Britain and its American colonies. These pesos or dollars were minted from the rich silver mine outputs of modern-day Mexico and [[Bolivia]] and exported in large quantities to Europe and Asia. These pesos served as a global [[silver standard]] [[reserve currency]] until the start of the 20th century, and became the model for the various pesos of Spanish America as well as (among others) the [[United States dollar]], [[Chinese yuan]] and the [[Japanese yen]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-silver-way-explains-how-the-old-mexican-dollar-changed-20410|title='The Silver Way' Explains How the Old Mexican Dollar Changed the World|first=Salvatore|last=Babones|date=April 30, 2017|website=The National Interest |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231001020247/https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-silver-way-explains-how-the-old-mexican-dollar-changed-20410 |archive-date= Oct 1, 2023 }}</ref> Mexican silver pesos of original cap-and-ray design were legal tender in the United States until 1857 and in China until 1935.