The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 15, April 15, 2007, Article 20

WHEN DID A BUCK BECOME A DOLLAR?

Bob Leuver forwarded the following extract from 'The History of Money',
by Jack Weatherford, Crown Publishers, New York (Random House), 1997.
He writes: "Jack's book is a great read."

"BUCK.  Settlers used the skin of the North American deer for trade.
Each skin was known as a buck, a word that has survived as a slang
term for a dollar.  (pg. 23)  President Harry S. Truman declared
“The Buck stops here.”  At the Bureau of Engraving and Printing,
machines have signs that read “The buck starts here.”   “Today the
electronic buck neither starts nor stops; it is in constant motion.”
(pg 249)"

Eric P. Newman writes: "In your April 8, 2007 E-Sylum there is an
answer about the word "buck" meaning dollar. Before Julian Liedman
answers his inquirer I believe more study should me made. In the
late 18th century and early 19th century deerskin exchange for
commercial transactions was commonly used in the Mississippi Valley
(including its Missouri and Ohio tributaries) at fluctuating values
around 2 1/2 to 3 deerskins to the French piastre or the Spanish
dollar. It was called in French "peaux de chevreuille" (variously
spelled). It should be researched further as to when one deerskin
became worth as much as a US Dollar. Whiskey at 5 bucks per keg in
the early 18th century was not $5, but 5 shaved deer skins."

[My daughter Hannah illustrated that usage of the word "buck" is
still much in vogue after two hundred years.  Playing in her toy
kitchen this evening she made Daddy a hamburger and said, "thirty
bucks, please!"   This is one kid that should have no trouble
paying her own way through college.  And she'll have to if I buy
too many thirty-buck hamburgers between now and then. -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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