Notebook

The Spanish depended completely on such iron objects as shovels, pickes, axes, hammers, anvils, tool. They needed to make horseshoes and affix them, to repair weapons, to replace things broken. Every nail, every piece of iron, was precious, because it had to come from Spain. A horseshoe cost 30 pesos; nails, 80 pesos the hundred. Many a horseman found it cheaper to have his animal shod with gold.

David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations.