How I miss the Peseta! Look at that up there. That was real money! 5,000 peseta notes, 10,000 Peseta notes, even the ever useful (and very valuable for daily use) Mil Pesetas lovely green bill. Of course, as Americanos the Euro is hurting us even more than the standard-issue Spaniard. But I bet you miss it too.That picture was the most Pesetas I ever saw together at one time - 2 million Pesetas! They were mine for about 3o seconds, then I handed them over to the sellers of my piso. It was the infamous "dinero negro" that I had to fork over on top of the "official" selling price. This cash went under their mattress I presume. Sounds very hush, hush and clandestine doesn't it? Well, my loan officer from BBVA was with me all the time and it seemed pretty normal to her.
Back to the Peseta. Well, the Peseta was very Spanish and unique. There were pictures of the King and other Spanish Big-shots all over the place, the bills were colorful and different sizes, the coins sometimes had holes in them, there were all kinds of cool slang words to use, like "Pelas", "Pasta", "Cuartos", "Duros". You had to calculate prices of everything in Pesetas. You felt like you were in Spain when you got your hands on some Pesetas. But best of all - you could buy a lot of crap with that damn Peseta.
Well, things change and now it's your turn Spain to come to the U.S. and buy a lot of cheap stuff. The Euro is kicking ass and the Dollar is in the crapper. So come on over - everything is on sale! But remember, just like the one-time high Dollar all things must pass, so the Euro has gotta come down too ... sometime.
By the way, that two million Pesetas? I wasn't a millionaire. In 2001 dollars, that was about $11,000.
2 comments:
¡Qué tiempos aquellos! :) I still have a 1000 peseta note in my wallet. I usually don't wax nostalgic about things but you're right...a thing that was culturally unique to Spain was lost when the Spanish shifted over to the Euro. What's interesting is how Spaniards, even young ones, continue to quote prices in pesetas for big-ticket items, like cars and apartments. Makes it hard for us guiris to figure out exactly how much that pisito in the realtor's window really costs!
Oh, but that was a very shortlived peseta... the long lived pesetas were out of pring a few years before you arrived I think... at least the pesetas on the photo are not the pesetas of the 80s
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