What is the origin of the £ and $ currency symbols?

[Impret-Sir]

Francs were just F, the deutschmark was DM, so why arent the pound P and the dollar D??

[sandyRoe]

I think the pound sign,£, came from Latin. LSD.

[vallaw]

Pounds were LSD, so capital L?

[scotman]

The £ comes from the Latin librae as in £sd = pounds, shillings and pence.

[Impret-Sir]

wow that was quick! thanks for those suggestions, but then could not the pound just be L, after all, the s and p bits are not changed with a line through them?

[jno]

the $ seems once to have been 'pesos'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$_sign

[jno]

oh, and the Indians have their own sign

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee_sign

[ABerrant]

Many currencies use symbols which are stylised versions of the initial letter of its name and for many of these the style used is indicative of the great age of those currencies, such as medieval script for old European currencies used since the Middle Ages.

It is not true that the Franc was 'just F'. It was originally an F with a line across the stem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franc

Deutsche Mark was 'DM' simply because it did not exist until 1948 so it would only ever be written in modern script. Previously the Reichsmark symbol was an Old German script 'RM', its precursor the Mark was a script 'M' and its pre-inflationary precursor the Pfennig was a script 'd' (denarius = penny= pfennig).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfennig

You can view numerous stylised currency symbols here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_sign

[lacmag3]

Try this:
http://oxforddictiona...page/origindollarsign

[boxtops]

£ came from the Latin - Librae, Solidae, Dinari

[boxtops]

.. and I wish they'd made more differentiation between the pound £ and the euro € - they're very easy to confuse when hand-written.