Gold pesetas

The gold peseta originated from the divergence between legal and effective exchange rates, and from the need to have a more realistic valuation of foreign transactions. Its main use was the determination of customs duties, although it was also used as an accounting unit in private commercial contracts. Consequently, foreign trade statistics were expressed in this unit, which meant that Spain’s balance of payments estimates in the first half of the 1930s also used it.

The period of use of this unit is under debate (see Álvarez (1945), Sánchez (1987), Tena (1985), and Tena (1992)), placing its start in 1922 or 1928. As for the end date of its use, the consensus places it in 1959.

In Banco de España (1978), the gold peseta is defined as: ‘[…] the value in pesetas of the amount of gold indicated by the parity of 1868, and it was obtained, at any given time, based on the value of those foreign currencies —the franc, the pound, and the dollar were the most common— that effectively maintained convertibility into gold at an established parity.’

o convert an amount of dollars, for example, to gold pesetas, the following formula was used:

old pesetas = Dollars * (value of one dollar in grams of fine gold / value of one peseta in grams of fine gold)

[fine gold: metal with at least 99.9% gold]