The Money

Money rules the world… Sometimes we ask ourselves who did this to us and invented it. But in the end it is necessary and very useful for the trade. It makes totally sense to give something with value to get something with value, that’s how the world works, with giving and taking. But some people misuse the power of money and play unfair.

 Anyway, human beings always used to trade between each other, but before there was the money in form of coins and bills, they used to use change other materials. People changed snails and seashells in Africa and China, rings and other jewelry in the South Pacific, people paid with stones in Micronesia and with fleece in North America. But also arrowheads, rice and salt were popular means of exchange. Until 1950 people often paid with barley and wheat.  The importance was that the means of change were durable commodities and rarely existing. Both would minimize the value.

But even if the mean of change would have been durable and rare there is a problem. What happens if one person that wants some material from another person doesn’t have something interesting and comparable in value for the other person to change? There won’t be a trade. So, people thought about a mean of change that everybody will take. Precious metal as money became more popular over the time and replaced the natural means of change, at least in Europe.

People weighted the metal and made portions to get the right value. But this was a long procedure, so people started to emboss coins. The different values got different coinages, so people didn’t have to weight the metal anymore to check the value. In the antique time the Coin money got popular very fast and spread over Europe. There it was seen as the real “money”. But who made the first coin money?
People found the oldest coins in the south eastern part of Europe, but was it again a genius idea of the Greeks? What do you think?

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