Paper on History of Money

HISTORY OF MONEY

The history of money concerns the development of means of carrying out transactions involving a physical medium of exchange. Money is any clearly identifiable object of value that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts within a market or which is legal tender within a country.

Many things have been used as medium of exchange in markets including, for example, livestock and sacks of cereal grain (from which the Shekel is derived) – things directly useful in themselves, but also sometimes merely attractive items such as cowry shells or beads were exchanged for more useful commodities. Precious metals from which early coins were made fall into this second category.

Numismatics is the scientific study of money and its history in all its varied forms.

Contents

* 1 Non-monetary exchange

* 1.1 Barter

* 1.1.1 Criticisms

* 1.2 Gift economy

* 2 The emergence of money

* 2.1 Early administration

* 2.2 Early usage

* 3 Commodity money

* 3.1 Standardized coinage

* 4 Trade bills of exchange

* 5 Tallies

* 6 Goldsmith bankers

* 7 Demand deposits

* 8 Banknotes

* 9 See also

* 10 References

* 11 Bibliography

* 12 Further reading

* 13 External links

Non-monetary exchange

Barter

Main article: Barter

In Politics Book 1:9[1] (c.350 B.C.) the Greek philosopher Aristotle contemplated on the nature of money. He considered that every object has two uses, the first being the original purpose for which the object was designed, and the second possibility is to conceive of the object as an item to sell or barter.[2] The assignment of monetary value to an otherwise insignificant object such as a coin or promissory note arises as people and their trading associate evolve a psychological capacity to place trust in each other and in external authority within barter exchange.[3][4]

With barter, an individual possessing any surplus of...