In the old days, it was rare to have good coins that contained a high proportion of precious metal. A coin with a good reputation could therefore become an international brand. In Joachimsthal (St. Joachim’s Valley) in Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic, there was a mine containing high-quality silver.
There in 1518 a high-content silver coin was struck and given the name Joachimsthaler, which was soon shortened to Thaler or Taler in German and thaler in English. It was such a good coin that it became widely used and became the Reichstaler (“daler of the realm”; riksdaler in Swedish) that was used throughout the Holy Roman Empire up until the 1800s.
Without being connected in any other way to the Joachimsthaler, coins with similar names appeared in country after country. Sweden got its riksdaler in the 1500s. It was used right up until 1873, when we were given the krona and öre instead. When the United States became independent in 1783, the new country’s new currency was named directly after the thaler, which in English became the dollar.
