The spesmilo (pronounced [spesˈmilo], plural spesmiloj [spesˈmiloi̯]) is an obsolete decimal international currency, proposed in 1907 by René de Saussure and used before World War I by a few British and Swiss banks, primarily the Ĉekbanko Esperantista.
 1₷ coin | |
| Unit | |
|---|---|
| Plural | spesmiloj |
| Symbol | ₷ |
| This infobox shows the latest status before this currency was rendered obsolete. | |
The spesmilo was equivalent to one thousand spesoj, and worth 0.733 grams (0.0259 oz) of pure gold (0.8 grams of 22 karat gold), which at the time was about one-half United States dollar, two shillings (one-tenth of a pound sterling) in Britain, one Russian ruble, or 2+1⁄2 Swiss francs. On 6 November 2022, that quantity of gold would be worth about US$43.50,[1] £38 sterling,[2] €44,[3] ₽2692 Russian roubles,[4] and SFr 43 Swiss francs.[5]
The basic unit, the speso (from Italian spesa or German Spesen;[6] spesmilo is Esperanto for "a thousand pennies"), was purposely made very small to avoid fractions.
Sign
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The spesmilo sign, called spesmilsigno in Esperanto, is a monogram of a cursive capital "S", from whose tail emerges an "m".[7] The currency sign is often typeset as the separate letters Sm.[8]
In Unicode, the character is assigned U+20B7 ₷ SPESMILO SIGN[9] in version 5.2.[10]
Miscellaneous
edit- The stelo was another currency unit used by the Universal League from 1942 to the 1990s.
- An Esperanto version of the board game Monopoly uses play money in denominations of spesmiloj.[11]
References
edit- ^ [1]. 6 November 2022
- ^ [2]. 6 November 2022.
- ^ [3]. 6 November 2022.
- ^ [4]. 6 January 2022.
- ^ [5] Archived 2016-08-26 at the Wayback Machine. 19 January 2014.
- ^ Cherpillod, André (2007). Konciza Etimologia Vortaro (in Esperanto). Universala Esperanto-Asocio. p. 432. ISBN 9789290170822.
- ^ Proposal to encode the Esperanto SPESMILO SIGN in the UCS, by Michael Everson
- ^ Esperanto and the Dream of a World Currency Archived 2007-09-26 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Proposed New Characters – Pipeline Table
- ^ Andrew West, BabelStone: What's new in Unicode 5.2? Archived 2009-10-05 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Monopolo
External links
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