After more than 230 years, the US stopped minting the penny this week. But long before that, the first dollar was coined – and it was created in a one-road town far away from the USA.

The US dollar is the most widely used currency in the world. It is both the primary de facto global tender and the world’s unofficial gold standard. According to the Federal Reserve, 58% of the planet’s financial reserves are held in US dollars – more than double the total foreign holdings of euros, yen and renminbi combined. Thirty-one nations have either adopted it as their official currency or named their money after it; 65 countries peg the value of their currencies to it; and it’s now accepted in places as far-flung as North Korea, Siberia and research stations on the North Pole.

Yet, one place where the dollar is not accepted is in the tiny Czech town of Jáchymov ­– which is ironic, because it was here, tucked deep into the wooded folds of Bohemia’s Krušné hory mountains, where the dollar originated more than 500 years ago in 1520. But as I pulled a George Washington one-dollar bill from my wallet in Jáchymov’s 16th-Century Royal Mint House museum, the very spot where the dollar’s earliest ancestors were coined, docent Jan Francovič smiled and stopped me.

“I haven’t seen one of these in a long time,” he said, calling over two colleagues. “In Jáchymov, we only accept koruna, euros or sometimes Russian rubles. You’re the first American to come here in more than three years.”

Welcome to Jáchymov: a sleepy 2,300-person town near the Czech-German border that’s both the home of the dollar and the home of no dollars. Chances are you’ve never heard of the place. You probably didn’t know that it is part of a

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