The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1894-09-22
THE OLD SPANISH COINS.
Recollections of the fps and Levies of Our
Grandfather's Days.

| this country knows anything about the
| old-time fps and levies that consti-
tuted a large portion of the subsidiary
| coin in circulation as late as the break
! ing out of the civil war;" said Col. c. A.
Pine, of the Port Jervis Gazette, who
remembers everything. 'These were
| Spanish coins, and they got into circu-
lation in this country through some
pecuniary settlement between the gov
| ernments of the United States and
Spain.
Fifty years ago very few silver coins
| from our mint were in circulation, es-
pecia1ly the smaller ones. A few half
| dollars and dollars were in use. The
| Spanish small coins were essentially
the peoples money in those days.
THE ftp represented the one-six-
teenth of a dollar, the levy one-eighth
of dollar. Ftp was the abbreviation
of an abbreviation of fve-penny bit.
When people spoke out the whole of
! what they meant in talking of five
penny bit they called it a fippenny bit,
but just ftp was sufficient for ordinary
everyday transactions Similarly, folks
didn't often say eleven-penny bit. They
contracted it to levy. That is, except
in New York state, northeastern Penn
sylvania, and northern New Jersey and
in New England, where they had no
use for either eleven-penny bit or levy.
In those localities the levy was
shilling.
But in southern New Jersey, south
ern Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland
and other border states, if you said
shilling people wouldn't know what
you meant. They called it levy. Fur
ther south levy became a bit, and the
ftp was a picayune. This was especially
the case at and about New Orleans,
and this nomenclature was carried up
the Mississippi river by the popular
means of communication in those
days, the steamboat to Rock Island,
Dubuque, Galena, st. Paul and other
river points.
In the same way the terms were
carried from New o rleans up the Mis-
souri, river as far as the white people
had pushed their way, up the Ohio to
Louisville and above, and even up the
Illinois river to Peoria and Peru, and
they took root in California when the
Pacific coast was settled by people
from the east. In the west i. was easy
to tell from what part of the country
man had emigrated, according to the
way he handled the names of the coins.
If he said levy he was sure not to be
from the New England States, New
York, northern New Jersey or north
ern Pennsylvania.
''These Spanish coins must have been
circulated many years, for they were
generally worn very smooth. Some of
them were 50 smooth. in fact, that they
would not pass current. The rule was
that if>the pillars on them could be
plainly seen, the coins were all right
| have seen fps that were SO smooth
and thin that they res embed nothing
more closely than a shad scale, and
levies that had been 50 long in use that
they were like smooth circles.
I'm some parts of the country, notably
in the southwest the fps and levies
We're rated equal with fve-cent and
ten-cent pieces, but in the east, and
particularly in Philadelphia and the
Quaker country about it, the people
wouldn't have it that way. They in
sisted that eight levies made dollar,
while it required ten ten-cent pieces TO
make dollar Hence, if the levy had
been recognized on par with the dime,
the frugal Philadelphia argued that
he was out just twenty-five cents on
every deal of that kind. Then, again,
twenty fve-cent pieces had to be got
together before man had a dollar,
whereas he only had to accumulate
sixteen fps to have the same amount.
This was becatse the levy was valued
at twelve and e half cents and the flr
at six and a fourth cents The same
rule existed among those who called
the levy a shilling.
Down south, however, there was
more fexibilitv in the rule of value OF
these coins, and they were passed for
either their face value or as dimes and
half-dimes. This was owing to the
contempt and Indifference with which
the southerners of that day regarded
small coins. They held pennies es-
peeially in contempt Back in the
early fifties Vicksburg gentleman
told me how the people of that town
scorned to take pennies in change at
the post office, and brushed them con-
temptuously off the counter to the
floor, from which even the 'niggers'
wouldn't condescend to pick them.
Those old Spanish pieces, worn rs
they might be. contained more pure
silver than the newest of our own
coins, and one of them would be a
great curiosity to-day. ~. Y. Sun.
The summer Bedroom
However the summer bedroom may
be furnished and Whatever part of the