The Latin Monetary Union which existed from 1865 to 1927. Each nation’s currency weighed the same and was accepted in every other country.

38 comments

  2. As a Spaniard I feel ashamed for not knowing this until today. But I do understand why my grandfather had in a tiny copper box a lot of coins from Italy and Greece that looked like exactly as the picture

  4. Even Switzerland was part of this. The current currency the Swiss franc is a legacy of it (French and Belgian francs were also made in that time).

  5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_Monetary_Union
    Issues is a fascinating read.
    Strange though that the nations did not remember this when constructing another union.
    The Scandinavians did, and part of their reasoning was their version failed for some of the same flaws https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Monetary_Union

    It blames fluctuations in the value of gold and ww1 for its downfall, but it is economic differences in the nations that is the issue.

  7. Finland was also a part of this union, nice to see a post about this relatively unknown time in history.
    I collect coins from LMU 🙂

  8. Of all those currencies throughout the centuries it’s only the commodity that is gold that remains, sure says something though.

  16. As someone who works with old coins every day I’m ashamed that I didn’t know this already. I did wonder why so many of these coins looked and were sized, so similarly though.

  18. All countries under the gold standard were in a de facto union. Those just used the same weights for their coins.

  22. This is to make up the fall of Spain as global power, where everyone used the Spanish dollar. Currencies that originated as Spanish dollars or copies of include US dollars, every other dollar, Pesos, Yuan, Yen, etc…

  25. Oh.. what is this? I am now very interested in Malta’s situation with this. Did this play into the growing split between Italian irredentism and Maltese nationalism, that played a crucial part in Malta’s domestic policy in WW2? Does anyone know what Malta’s relation to this union was or where I can find more info on it?

  27. Why have I never heard of this? How did this work at the time? I assume all currency was tied to actual value (gold?) Seems like it had huge fraud potential back in the day if a member decides to go rogue, issue large amounts of money and buys goods with it frome another country. Or did the coins themselves hold the value by being made of gold or silver? I would have assumed that system was gone long before ’27.

  28. We attempted an exchange-able coin in the US. It had a face value of $4 and was called the Stella. Only a few were minted and passed out to Congress so they could get their opinion on them. The coins ended up in brothels around Washington DC.

  30. Latin Monetary Union was a direct result of trying to adopt the Bi-Metal Standard, whereas gold and silver would be traded in europe at a fixed rate, it failed due to greedy shenannigans by certain aderehent member states and was exchanged by the gold standard.

  35. Britain may have not been part of the standard, but I remember reading an 1880’s tourist guidebook to the South of France, which stated that British gold coins were usually accepted even in remote areas. I think they had a fixed ratio of value depending on weight.

  37. The Scandinavian Monetary Union existed at roughly this time as well, 1873-1914, inspired by the Latin Monetary Union. It’s the reason why the currencies in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland are all named krona/krone.

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