You are right. "pieces of eight" seems to come from the phrase pieces of eight r...

njarboe on Sept 28, 2018 | parent | context | favorite | on: Books vs. Cigarettes (1946)

You are right. "pieces of eight" seems to come from the phrase pieces of eight reals, with the real being the Spanish unit of silver money. Although I would guess and this site states that they did get cut up from time to time to make change[1].

[1]https://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume3...