The “Beau Dollar” Mystery
English has been called unflatteringly a “bastard language”; the more polite among linguists are more likely to call it a mélange. As numismatists, we use terms imported and changed over the centuries in our ever-changing tongue daily.
As a collector who is also fascinated by language, I thought I had a substantial grip on numismatic terms and their etymology until I started working at Harlan J. Berk, one of the busiest coin shops in the country in Chicago, Illinois (shown above). I am a transplant, spending the better part of a decade in Texas with the U.S. Army. I often joke to my coworkers that I am a stranger in a strange Yankee land. During one of my first weeks working the counter, an older African American gentleman asked if we had any “bo-dollars.” I was absolutely perplexed about what a “bo-dollar” was, and my trusty coworker told me the gentleman was asking for a silver dollar. Naturally, as soon as our transaction was finished, I wondered why in the world he had called a silver dollar a “bo-dollar.” No one in the shop had a firm answer, only that they had only heard the term from black clients. I kept my ear to the ground for the next few months and paid attention when the word came up.
The word mainly refers to Morgan dollars rather than silver dollars at large. However, on some occasions, the customer referred to Peace dollars and even Ike dollars on one occasion. In October 2022, I decided to figure out where this term came from.
The term is of French origin, most likely New World Creole. It mainly refers to Morgan dollars.
Beau Dollar Origins
My first step was a quick Google search for “bo-dollar.” A few results appeared, and I immediately learned that my spelling needed to be more accurate. While phonetically the word is “bo” or “bow,” the University of Wisconsin-Madison listed the term as “beau-dollar.”
“beau dollar n Also sp bo dollar, Boer ~, bow ~ [Prob < Fr (through L.A. creole Fr) beau beautiful—often used as vague term of commendation. The comb beau dollar is attested in Fr texts, though it is not clear whether it specifically denotes a silver dollar.”
The term is of French origin, most likely New World Creole. I then reached out to a titan in numismatics and a friend, Tom DeLorey. Mr. DeLorey has an extensive resume—he is the godfather of the modern grading system and retired from the firm I now work for. In a PCGS forum post from 2019, Tom had this to say:
“I believe that ‘bo’ is a phonetic corruption of the French Creole ‘beau,’ one definition of which is ‘good.’ At the end of the Civil War, if you had a Confederate paper dollar, you had trash, but if you had a real silver dollar, you had a beau dollar. I asked various people who used the term how they spelled it, and most did not know. It was an oral tradition passed down in the culture. While working coin shows on the East Coast, I would politely ask African American customers, after we were done with our business, if they were familiar with the term ‘Bo Dollar.’ Only one of them had ever heard of it.”
1881 Morgan “beau dollar.” (Photo: Russell Bega)
This is the most fitting explanation backed by the most evidence. According to an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune on February 14, 1971,
“The first time I heard the expression ‘Beau-dollar’ was 20 years ago when a black man came into my newly opened coin store and asked to purchase one. . . The word ‘Beau’ is a slang expression in Louisiana Cajun French, meaning ‘real,’ as opposed to the paper dollars that have been mistrusted thruout [sic] the world’s history.”
Further History of the Beau Dollar
There are, of course, other theories as to the term’s etymology. Many come from the antebellum and postbellum South as well. In an article published in The Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 17, 1952, one possible explanation is given, that it refers [to the price that a man would have paid for a bride, almost like a dowery]; in the same article, another possible explanation is “Bo” referring simply to a man being paid his wages. Other explanations come from a curious source: the Boer Wars of the late 19th century and the early 20th century fought between the Dutch Boer settlers of modern-day South Africa, surrounding countries, and the British Empire. According to the Florence, South Carolina, Morning News c. 1952:
“One of our students asked me if I knew the meaning of a ‘Boer dollar.’ He had heard the expression often in the phrase: ‘I have lost my Boer dollar.’ This indicated the loss of luck. . . Nobody knew its origin, or how to spell it. . . Last summer, while in Canada, he renewed his inquiry and was informed that during the Boer War, the English soldiers sometimes carried a Boer dollar for a talisman or charm. I then went home, sat down at the dinner table, and asked the maid: ‘Wilhelmina, did you ever hear of a Boer dollar?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Well, what is it?’ ‘It’s a silver dollar.’ ‘Is it lucky to carry one?’ ‘Yes sir, two of ’em is better than one.'”
While this is an interesting anecdote that curiously also comes from the American South, I don’t believe it holds as much water as the term “beau dollar.”
A Shameful Past
Having established the term comes from the old South, I still had a nagging question: how in the world did a term that originated in the deep South become so prevalent in the literal land of Lincoln? And furthermore, after living in the South for over a decade, how had I never heard this term? The answer lies in the shameful past of Jim Crow. Between 1910 and 1970, approximately 6 million African Americans migrated from the segregated South to the Midwest and West to escape poverty, racial violence, and oppression in what is known as “The Great Migration.” Tracing the routes of this mass migration, we see that many African Americans from the Mississippi Delta, which covers portions of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, settled here in Chicago. These men and women brought with them some of the things the Windy City is most famous for, like jazz and blues music, and, of course, things little known to a simple transplant like myself, like the term “beau dollar.”
One of the things I personally love about numismatics is tracking the exchange of coins and paper currency. How did Spanish 8 reales make it to the new world to circulate and become the basis of a new nation’s monetary system? How did ancient Greek coins end up in Afghanistan? The answer is simple yet incredibly complex: the cross-cultural exchange and the flow of ideas and people. The next time you hold a New Orleans-minted silver dollar, remember that you have a real, bonified beau dollar in your hand.
Sources
- “Beau Dollar (no date).” Dictionary of American Regional English.
- “The Great Migration (1910-1970).” National Archives and Records Administration.