Currency of Venezuela copper centavos dated 1852 were minted at Birmingham and London. Birmingham Mint Ltd.: Royal Mint, London: Venezolano (Peso) = 10 Reales = 100 Centavos Conversion: 1 venezolano = 5 francos A new monetary law, April 1, 1854, provided for a mint in Caracas to produce a national coinage based on both gold and silver. The gold coins would be: onza, media onza, doblón (1/4 onza), escudo (1/8 onza), and venezolano de oro (1/16 onza or peso de oro). Silver coins were: peso fuerte or venezolano de plata, medio peso, peseta (1/4 peso), real (1/8 peso), and medio real (1/16 peso).
World currency Habsburg territories. Prior to and during most of the 19th century, international trade was denominated in terms of currencies that represented weights of gold. Most national currencies at the time were in essence merely different ways of measuring gold weights (much as the yard and the meter both measure length and are related by a constant conversion factor). Hence some assert that gold was the world's first global currency. The emerging collapse of the international gold standard around the time of World War I had significant implications for global trade. Before 1944, the world reference currency was the United Kingdom's