Early Forms of Money, besides Currency, which may include Coins

Abstract

Sometimes, when currency which may include coin is not ubiquitous in a society, that society turns to other items to serve as money. This article examines several objects in history that may have fulfilled the requirements of being money. This article examines some of the forms of money, employed other than what most people think of as conventional money. This article summarizes different forms of early money, used in different time periods and in different geographic areas. The different types of possible earlier money examined in this article are wampum, warehouse receipts for tobacco, art during the German Third Reich and its aftermath, beaver fur pelts, rice, and stone money at Yap or Rai, cocoa, tea bricks, cigarettes, whale’s teeth, musket balls and cattle. Interestingly cattle was the first item that played the role of money and that started in 9,000 B.C. The other livestock such as goats were valued in terms of cattle, which served as the unit of account. There are three requirements of something to serve as money. They must be a store of value. They have to be used as a medium of exchange. As described in this article, the art that was stolen during the German Third Reich and immediate aftermath was traded among a small group of people. For that reason, it was not considered a medium of exchange, since so few people used it for that purpose. In addition, money must have a unit of account. artworks described by being part of the thefts during the German Third Reich Era had no unit of account. For example, a painting by artist X was not easily valued in terms of a painting by artist Y, without using dollar or other monetary measurements for each painting. The examples in this article can help any economist who is teaching and researching about money and banking.