Piastre

The name was applied to Spanish and Hispanic American pieces of eight, or pesos, by Venetian traders in the Levant in the 16th century.

[1] Meanwhile, in Indochina, the piastre continued into the 1950s and was subsequently renamed the riel, the kip, and the dong in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam respectively.

For example, the original French version of the 1867 Constitution of Canada refers to a requirement that senators hold property d'une valeur de quatre mille piastres.

The term is still unofficially used in Quebec, Acadian, Franco-Manitoban, and Franco-Ontarian language as a reference to the Canadian dollar, much as English speakers say "bucks."

Showing their history, and legal basis, and their actual weight, fineness, and value chiefly from original and recent assays.

With which are incorporated treatises on bullion and plate, counterfeit coins, specific gravity of precious metals, etc., with recent statistics of the production and coinage of gold and silver in the world, and sundry useful tables.