Currency

Spanish Gold Coins — Spanish gold coins.

The two main currencies used in Black Sails are the currencies of the British and Spanish Empire, the British pound sterling and the Spanish piece of eight.

Piece of Eight[]

The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight or peso, is a silver coin worth eight Spanish reales. It is widely used due to the uniformity in standard and milling characteristics.

Beginning in 1537, the piece of eight was supplemented by the gold escudo, which was worth about two dollars. The famous “gold doubloon” was worth 2 escudos or four dollars.

The Spanish dollar is the common currency of the Spanish Empire, as well as the pirate haven of Nassau and many British colonies, for it is viewed as a more stable currency.

Pounds Sterling[]

The pound was a unit of account in Anglo Saxon England equal to 240 silver pennies and equivalent to one pound of silver. It evolved into the current British currency, the pound sterling. The accounting system of 4 farthings = 1 penny, 12 pence = 1 shilling, 20 shillings = one pound, was adopted from the system introduced by Charlemagne to the Frankish Empire.

Other Currencies[]

No other true currencies are used by the characters. However, commodities such as gems and pearls are often used in place of coins, for they are for easier to transport.

History[]

Season One[]

After taking Parrish's Ship Gates tells Dufresne that they found eight more barrels of whale oil in the hold during their final sweep. Dufresne says that the total tally is 400 dollars, but if they get lucky they can get 500. After injury payments, they will net barely 8 dollars per man.
Gates asks to borrow 1,000 pieces of eight from Eleanor Guthrie in order to buy votes for Flint in the upcoming captaincy election. He succeeds in buying back 16 votes.
Flint wants to capture the Urca de Lima, a treasure galleon carrying 5 million Spanish dollars in gold.
Eleanor Guthrie is concerned after she sees a heavily bruised prostitute in the Inn, but Mrs. Mapleton brushes it off, saying she spent the night with the Ranger crew and was paid 50 pieces.
Eleanor tells a crew new to Nassau that after she sells their plunder, she takes four reales off every dollar they make- half their profits, but the more they earn the better the terms get.
Jack Rackham tries to buy the Urca schedule from John Silver for 5,000 pesos (pieces of eight) in black pearls, the bulk of his crew’s savings.
Frasier appraises the pearls and assures Max, Silver’s business partner, that they are of good quality and that they would be worth 200 pieces of eight at any clearinghouse in the civilized colonies.
Flint and Gates request £10,000 from Vane and Rackham as recompense for the murder of Mosiah.
The Black Hind and the Intrepid took prizes with a total worth 1,600 pieces of eight since the beginning of 1715, they are the two lowest earning ships on the island.
When taking the Andromache, Flint finds the manifest which says they are carrying 38 slaves. He finds nine priced over 100 pounds, meaning that they are strong men.
Miranda Barlow sends Addington Thomas, a magistrate inBoston, a letter requesting a pardon for Flint. She encloses a bill of exchange for £500 to be used at his discretion towards procuring it.
At the Inn, hand jobs cost five pieces of eight, while mothering costs twenty.

Gates says that when a former crewmate of his named Cregg died, he found 12 pesos in his locker. Gates later bought a round for his men using the pesos.

Season Two[]

Captain Ned Low paid 90 pieces of eight to Max for the lead about the Good Fortune prize.
Wayne stole three pieces of eight from a sleeping crewmate.
Someone kills two watchmen and steals £500 worth of cargo from the Guthrie Warehouse.
After Vane and his men kill Low and his crew, they find Abigail Ashe, whom Low had captured with the intent of ransoming her to her father, Governor Peter Ashe of Carolina. In his log, Low wrote that he planned on ransoming her for 250,000 pounds sterling.
Vane tries to ask Abigail questions about the total value of her father’s estate, the number of rooms in his house, the number of slaves he owns. When she tells him she doesn’t know because she’s been at school in London, he settles on the figure Low had chosen.
John Silver pays a Pirate Actor several pieces to pretend to be a member of Benjamin Hornigold's crew that survived Vane's Seizure of Fort Nassau in order to convince more men to join Flint's cause.
Jacob Garrett goes upstairs at the Inn with Anne Bonny after mistaking her for a prostitute. He asks her what her rules are, and when she doesn't answer, he says he is usually charged 5 pieces and promises her that he is not interested in anything unusual. They are stopped from doing anything by Idelle.
When Flint tries to negotiate with Vane to release Abigail, Vane demands the Spanish Man O’ War as payment.

Season Three[]

Jack Rackham spends thousands of dollars trying to get five different crews to rebuild Fort Nassau.
Anne Bonny warns Jack Rackham that his parties in the Governor's Mansion are costing him at least 100 pounds a day and will eventually bleed him dry. Jack replies that in about 800 years, Anne will be right.
Warren, a crew mate aboard the Colonial Dawn, asks to withdraw 500 pieces after losing the 500 he had just withdrawn. He later loses the second sack of gold. Both are found by Idelle and returned to Rackham.
Max says that one black pearl is with 350 pieces, and that they should exchange the gold for more easily transportable commodities.
Max and Jack exchange the gold for jewels and pearls with a number of different people. With one merchant, they exchange 46,121 pieces of eight for 316 black pearls.
Jack mentions that he has paid the pirate captains of Nassau thousands of pieces of eight in expectation of the day where their cooperation would be called upon to defend Nassau.
A bounty of £10,000 is placed on the capture of Charles Vane, dead or alive.
Max offers Woodes Rogers her portion of the Urca gems. Rogers tells Eleanor that it is the worth the equivalent of five years of tax revenue without any of the resentment that usually comes with it.
A bounty of £ 500 is placed on the capture of Anne Bonny after she refuses to give up her portion of the Urca cache of gems.

Season Four[]

A bounty of 500 pieces is placed on the head of John Silver. Israel Hands captures him and plans on inflating the bounty by killing Redcoats and assigning credit for their murders to Silver.
To gain entry at the Philadelphia harbor, there are a number of fees that have to be paid. This includes a 2 shilling entry fee, 2 shilling pilot’s fee, 3 shilling pilot’s departure fee, sixpence trading fee, and a “voluntary” contribution to the Society of Friends of 2 shillings.
Jack Rackham proposes a deal to Joseph Guthrie, where Guthrie purchases the debts of Woodes Rogers, which he will be able to do for pennies because of the ruinous state of Nassau.
Woodes Rogers demands the remaining cache of Urca gems as ransom for Madi.

Quotes[]

"These are identical. 350 pieces on both sides, yet one I can fit in the palm of my hand, and the other is currently occupying the entirety of the vault beneath your fort." - Max to Jack Rackham on the exchange rate between black pearls and gold dollars in XX.

Trivia[]

Multiple different exchange rates for pieces of eight to black pearls are said throughout the show. In episode II it is given as one pearl is worth 200 pieces. In XX it is given as 350 pieces to a black pearl. However, in the very next episode, 46,121 pieces of eight are exchanged for 316 pearls, which is roughly 146 pieces per pearl. It is possible that the quality of the pearls varied, however.