Who invented money and who was the first schmuck to accept it?

I've just been thinking about this recently and I just don't really get it.

Back in the old days, before money (although I don't know how far back it goes), one would probably trade something of their own for something someone else has which is of use to them. They trade two objects with actual functionality for a perceived "good deal". For example, one may have given a sheep for a cow or something. The cow has an actual use, and so does the sheep. So this seems like a fairly clever way of getting something you want, right? So introducing money - the coin. Observing the coin itself, it serves no function, no purpose. It's useless and effectively worthless. I can't eat the coin, I can't make the coin edible, the coin won't generate something that I could make into something edible. The coin lying on the the table there is useless, it can't do a bloody thing for me. So at what point did we begin to think it was worth something? Who managed to convince us? At what point did some guy think of money, and at what point did he manage to use it and get away with it? For example, had a person wanted a cow and given someone a coin back then for it, logic would dictate he would be laughed at. What use would this man have for this coin in replacement of his cow? If he got a sheep instead, he could get wool! With this coin, he has nothing.

So what happened? How did money come to be, and why the hell did we accept it?

I don't know how, but I'm glad it happened. We as a human race would not be so advanced without it, it's vital for the society we live in. Things like the medical system, space exploration, even the way we acquire food simply would not work. That's just 3 examples but there are many, many more. Soon all money will be digital though, this I do not like.

reply to post by shadowland8

It has long been assumed that from early times, metals, where available, have usually been favored for use as proto-money over such commodities as cattle, cowry shells, or salt, because they are at once durable, portable, and easily divisible.[12] The use of gold as proto-money has been traced back to the fourth millennium BC when the Egyptians used gold bars of a set weight as a medium of exchange,[citation needed] as had been done earlier in Mesopotamia with silver bars.

The Mesopotamian civilization developed a large scale economy based on commodity money. The Babylonians and their neighboring city states later developed the earliest system of economics as we think of it today, in terms of rules on debt,[2] legal contracts and law codes relating to business practices and private property. Money was not only an emergence, it was a necessity.

en.wikipedia.org...

Wiki certainly has plenty of info, might wanna start there. In the article it says that there is no certain first use of currency though.

reply to post by shadowland8


In the Barter system it was hard for people to carry big loads of items from one place to another just to barter it. So to make things easier they created money, which was easier to carry/transport!

Originally posted by shadowland8
what Who what what What How why?

You could try wikipedia as a starting point.

Originally posted by shadowland8
The coin lying on the the table there is useless, it can't do a bloody thing for me. So at what point did we begin to think it was worth something?

When someone else saw the coin and said" I want it" ,then tried to swap it for a cow or try and steal it
It's only valuable when someone else wants it.
Enter greed

reply to post by shadowland8


Not such a simple question when you study it. Seems it was a tedious transition from Barter (9000-6000BC) through to Paper money (900AD). Take a look at this website for a brief run-down on the history of money.

library.thinkquest.org...

Money arose out of necessity. Start with this simple scenario: suppose I were a potato farmer and I wanted to buy a horse from my neighbor. I offer him some potatoes. But my neighbor doesn't need any potatoes at the moment. So I propose that instead of giving him potatoes I write him a note saying that I promise to give him potatoes when he needs them. Since he knows that I am honest, he agrees. He gives me a horse and takes the note. I've effectively issued him some currency which is tradeable for goods.

This explains it perfectly.

reply to post by shadowland8


Without a monetary system, there wouldn't be half as many oxygen thieves in this world, because with a bartering system, if you don't have a skill or produce that can be traded, you won't last long.


Perhaps we should do away with money again...

Tea. Tea started it all. Big blocks of tea. Stamped witn Imperial logos and traded as valid currency.

You see you can use tea. It makes a nice hot drink.

And it had value.

I wish I could trade a bag of tea for a new video card tho..

I believe paper money and cheques where invented by the knights templars, they didn't want to carry all that gold and silver with them during their journey's/crusades to the holy land, so they wrote a cheque which covered the capital they owned. There were a couple of trading posts along the route where they could cash in their cheques..I also believe that after friday the 13th, when the templars where prosecuted by the pope, most fled to what is now Switzerland (also a rumor to the US!... in boats), guess what happened to that country and the banking sector which came into existence..
At least gold and silver had a value on its own, when paper money and digital money came along, not to mention derivatives, the system went ape#..Funny you called it schmuck, i guess the first schmuck was the one who invented paper money, not accepted it

You need to take further step backward in discovering the root of money.
The cause was, pure, unadultrated hunger.

In the pre-dawn days of history, a man was starving (for some reason that may mor may not have been by his own doing or not doing).

The man goes to his neighbor with his hand out rather than with his stone axe in hand--after all, some civility was at hand (no pun intended).

The neighbor was no fool--another attribute of a bigger brain, and say, "What will give me or do for me in exchange?" He sorta like the idea of power over the less fortunate.

The starving man, says, "I'm at your mercy, anything you want."

The neighbor says, "OK," and named his terms.

Initially this was a barter system of sorts, eventually it became more sophisticated, and some form of money or wampum was used as a permanent, non-pershiable means of exchange.

Eventually, a class of people saw the benefit in this system and refined it into various kinds of "banking."

(Always there is a unit of exchange. Bartering is nothing more than the earliest form of banking. And all in all, it is more civilized than plundering which is what the have-nots did in the early days.)

reply to post by shadowland8


The money was invented few thousand years ago and was reinvented periodicaly through history (even Roman Empire fell because of the financial crisis )
It's easier to bring a coin that represent some value then a cow or few cows if the market is faw away .. people used everything, from huge stones to different metals.

It's just the way the human nature works .. money comes and goes