NNP

fitting epitaph for this ardent patriot comes from his own words I have neglected the road to affluence I have exhausted my all and plunged myself deeply in debt to support the cause of America BD Russell Roberts is a full time freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than ijo national and regional publications He is the author of seven non fiction books and resides in New Jersey Oliver Pollock and the Dollar Sign Some Internet sources credit Oliver Pollock as the originator of the dollar sign Because Pollock did most of his business in Spanish pesos they claim that Pollock s abbreviation for pesos was an elaborately intertwined letter p and s Pollock sent his billing records to Robert Morris of the Continental Congress who continued using Pollock s p and s abbreviation wh

ve delivered me here at 10 bits this currency say 12 2 bits your money showing the differential in value of reals in the two regions If a cash payment was made in a 10 real to the dollar region full weight Spanish American 2 real coins should have been received at 4 to the dollar but may sometimes have been improperly credited to a customer only at the rate of 5 pistareens to the dollar Oliver Pollock s Participation In a five page invoice concerning many types of merchandise ship ped from New Orleans on April 1 1778 on board Bateau La Pro vidence by Oliver Pollock and consigned to Robert Morris William Smith and Henry Laurens the United States Secret Committee to Charter Vessels and Transport on Account Risque of the United Independent States of America in Philadelphia there are

History proves fascinating Continued from page 129 by Spain started against the English although not officially declared but the Spaniards were in favor of the United States In the late part of 1777 Galves gave the representative of the United States Oliver Pollock mentioned earlier the first help of 74 000 pesos in silver which means 74 000 sil ver eight reales worth 740 000 dollars if we use a multiplica tion by 10 I do believe that the figure 10 is too low and that 74 000 eight reales represent about one million dollars to day It was needed badly be cause the American armies lacked food and equipment Oliver Pollock did not delay a moment the

tury It is Dr Cajori s theory that is accepted today by most numismatists Furthermore the scholar was able to provide documented evidence that revealed the exact date when the dollar sign was first employed plus the name of the man who used it According to Dr Cajori the dollar Page 6 sign as we know it today was first used by a commercial agent of the United States at New Orleans named Oliver Pollock In a letter dated September 12 1778 Pollock included a list of financial transactions expressed in dollars the word Pollock used within the body of the letter The writer used the symbol ps as a prefix to the numbers making up his list That symbol ps was introduced to the New World by the Spanish and was at that time common throughout Mexico as the generally accepted notation for the pe

ajori The Origin of the Dollar Mark The Numismatist 1929 pp 489 93 This information was repeated in New Data on the Origin and Spread of the Dollar Mark Scientific Monthly 1929 p 212 and his A History of Mathematical Notations vol 2 Chicago 1929 pp 15 29 9 Margaret F Dairy mple The Merchant of Manchac The Letterbooks of John Fitz patrick 1768 1790 Baton Rouge 1978 10 Oliver Pollock Letters Papers of the Continental Congress Item 50 National Archives 1 1 James A James Oliver Pollock The Life and Times of an Unknown Patriot New York 1937 12 Lee above n 5 the printer and publisher was William W Wands in Lans ingburgh now Troy New York 14 The Origin of the Dollar Sign The Numismatist 1899 pp 203 4 14 Henry L Bullen Collectanea Typographica The

the Spanish dollar When the United States adopted its own currency in 1783 it used Spanish money as its model Scholars have since theorized that the sign evolved out of an abbreviation for peso the plural for pesos was ps which eventually became simply an S with a single stroke denoting the p One early instance of the use of the symbol crops up in a letter written by the merchant Oliver Pollock in 1778 Pollock also uses the ps abbreviation making the letter a bridge between the two The symbol is one of the most widely used currency symbols around the world but it is not used on banknotes of the USA So effectively the symbol was designed and made popular by the common people over a period of time and it has been used for communication for the longest time without any formal in

nd interim governor of the Province The American colonies were at war with Great Britain and it would only be a short time before Spain would be engaged in the American Revolution The colonies needed financial aid supplies and additional manpower In 1777 through Galvez s effort 70 000 worth of goods was shipped to Pittsburgh Philadelphia and other American posts Forming an alliance with Oliver Pollock the American agent in New Orleans General Galvez kept the Mississippi River open for navigation so that much needed provisions and essential equipment could be supplied to General George Rogers Clark in the upper Midwest and to General George Washington in the east By 1779 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and was commissioned by the King of Spain Carlos III to serve as Gover

Birth of a Capital Market Early transfer books reveal the identities of America s first investors By Robert E Wright 20 The Fight Against Counterfeiting A brief history of counterfeiting in the U S from Colonial notes to today s modern money By Tamar Anolic 24 A Long View of the Capital Markets Identifying the major differences between modern and historic markets By William J Bernstein 28 Oliver Pollock Forgotten Financier of the American Revolution Biographical sketch of an important financier and supplier for the American Revolution in the West By Russell Roberts 31 A Pathway to Peace Corn Sales to the Soviets Agricultural entrepreneur Roswell Garst shares his strategies with Nikita Khrushchev By Bruce Weitzman On the Cover Sheets of 10 bills roll off the presses at the Bureau of Engravin

OLIVER Forgotten Financier of the American Revolution By Russell Roberts History is rife with examples of important people who have faded into its dusty pages until they are no more than a footnote Unfortunately that same fate has befallen Oliver Pollock financier and supplier for the American Revolution in the West In fact George Rogers Clark hero of the legendary Northwest Territory campaign stated that without the financial assistance of Pollock his efforts would have been impossible Little is known about the early life of this unsung American hero Pollock was born in Coleraine Ireland in 1737 In 1760 along with his father two brot

CL t 2 cjC 4 tf hr i v CT k 77 ctrvt f 51 frrrrTrr rfs 2S2 Jr 3 t 7 Some believe th it Oliver Pollock s use of a symbol combining an S and a P for Spanish pesos is the origin of the modern dollar sign as confidant and partner Galvez loaned Pollock money which the trader used to buy supplies to send to American outposts along the upper Mississippi By now such was Pollock s revolu tionary zeal that he was loaning money to the American cause without even setting terms for repayment 1 ha

Paper Money March April Whole No 260 129 On This Date in Paper Money History Apr 2009 By Fred Reed Apr t 1778 the dollar sign S is created by Oliver Pollock i Pollack a New Orleans busi nessman according to one tradition 1865 first shipment of SI and S2 NBNs sent to First National Bank of Akron OH 1 879 Refunding Certificates bear bis date Apr 2 CSA Si 00 and S3 00 note sheets arrive in Montgomery AL from NBNCq NYC 1914 Federal Reserve announces plans to establish 12 districts Apr 3 1729 Benjamin Franklin publishes pamphlet A Mod

short of ammunition and provisions that could be purchased from Louisiana And that is how in a way both met each other for a common cause the Independ ence of North America Early in 1776 on a sultry night Captain George Gibson of the American forces berthed a small boat at the pier in New Orleans He was in charge of a small group from Fort Pitt He went to the house of the Ameri can agent Oliver Pollock and together they went to the house of Governor Unzaga The purpose of the visit was to obtain help from the Spanish government and from the gov ernor Lt William Linn accom panied both men and asked not only for help but also for pro tection The revolution had just be gun and they needed protection against the English Unzaga realized the importance of the visit and of the visitors He op

a Spanish inspired symbol for monetary notation was vastly preferable to the English pound sign that had been in use throughout most of the American Revolution And so just as we did two years ago during our observance of the bicentennial of our independence as a nation we might do well to remember one other American whose contribution to our culture was if not profound at least significant Oliver Pollock who quite by accident bequeathed us our dollar sign Continued from Page 14 The coin has been owned by Cal ifornia dealer numismatist Abe Kosoff World Wide Coin and Bowers and Ruddy as partners thence to A Mark Hughes and Superior who just sold it to an anonymous collctor who is a big name in the entertainment field Only two other coins have brought higher prices an Athenian Decadrac

Fm supposed to know how the dollar sign got started but I can t find out any thing about it Can you help me R T Chicago A The dollar sign developed from the abbreviation for the peso ps The peso or Spanish dollar was used in Colonial America where some busi nessmen wrote an even shorter desig nation for peso an s superim posed on a p One such influential entrepreneur was Oliver Pollock of New Orleans who put a large loop in the lower part of the p making the letter look more like a u Financial state ments written by Pollock are in the University of Chicago library In the 1780s the dollar became the basic unit of the American monetary system and some early government officials at least one influenced by Pollock s symbol began using the dol lar sign as we know it t

He noticed that in Mexico until after independence from Spain in 1821 the Mexicans continued to use the abbreviation ps for pesos as they had done in the eighteenth century He concluded that the sign was developed about 1775 in North America by English speaking Americans who were in business con tact with Spanish speaking Americans and that the earliest known written use of the sign was by Oliver Pollock of New Orleans in an August 29 1778 letter to George Rogers Clark He also stated that the first printed use of the sign was in Chauncey Lee s

Origin of the Dollar Sign 19 w V i 10 In a September 11 1778 Pollock letter to George Rogers Clark the sign is used but the letter is written by a Virginia scribe fig 1 1 2 y AP97 i vfrLi i S 1 1 During the American Revolution Oliver Pollock was working in New Orleans then Spanish Territory as a secret United States com mercial agent His biographer James Alton James infers that Pollock was a developer of the sign Pollock had come to America from Coleraine Ireland in 1760 at age 23 Backed by Willing and Mor ris of Philadelphia in 1763 he became a ship operating trader head quartered in Havana Cuba dealing extensive