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I've heard this etymology before, but the article would be a lot more convincing if it showed an actual in-the-wild example of the "intermediate form" of the symbol, with the P and S exactly superimposed on each other...

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Florian Cajori's A History of Mathematical Notations goes into the history and notes examples of old written manuscripts showing the intermediate form in use, with one example where both were used interchangeably in a letter. He examined the question in depth, showed that the earliest uses in the US had a single stroke, with the double stroke only coming later, and dealt with the other theories showing as conclusively as possible that it's a peso sign composed of a superimposed P/S. It's an old book, and not on a web site, but you could probably find a copy at a library.

Here's the link to the book you refer to (two volumes in one, the second volume starts at p. 469). I can't see where it writes about the dollar sign, can you help me?

http://monoskop.org/images/2/21/Cajori_Florian_A_History_of_...

Edit: thanks Nemo!

It starts on p. 15 of volume II, around 2/3s of the way into the pdf.

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

I see no reason why make something up that would be quite easy to disprove by looking at old records.

Oh, it's still the internet. People are lazy, and people make up things all the time.

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