Alternatives to local currency?

[Zixinus]

Money always loses its value.

Now, in Zimbabwe, it was a relief that inflation was frozen, because computers and calculators were having problems displaying all the zeros, while the money is not worth the paper its printed on. The country's everyday business is done with foreign currency, if not with barter trade.

However, before the days where you could get foreign currency down the street, what were the alternatives for mere money?

I know that gold was often used as an universal standard. Where does this standard come from?

Also, what were alternatives to that? Would it be logical for gems and other precious stones to be used instead of gold, being lighter and easier to smuggle?

[Samuel]

Gold was used due to rarity, shinyness and the fact it doesn't rust. Alternatives back in the day would probably be things like land, livestock (origionally used as a measure of wealth), possessions, etc.

[Akhlut]

Depends on how far back you are talking about. For instance, in the Middle Ages, the Byzantine solidus was something of a universal currency, being accepted everywhere in Europe and the Levant. Most local currencies (for a given definition of "local") were often coins made of precious metals, anyway, so it often really wouldn't make sense to be trading in ingots of gold for local trade(especially since most people wouldn't have access to gold ingots), and they'd be roughly immune to regular inflation (minus, of course, of being officially adulterated to maintain gold supplies or people shaving down the edges of coins to make their own small gold ingots or something).

Otherwise, salt would have been an acceptable trade good, being rare, immune to decay, and extremely useful. Most people wouldn't have access to precious gems, spices, ivory, or other high value trade goods because most people were peasants. So, that being said, barter was/is the usual mode of trade for material possesions for most of human history (unless one counts livestock as currency, as some societies kind of do). A lot of informal markets around the world still accept bartered goods, and it is a lot easier than trying to get access to rubies or whatever. Plus, for most peasants, it is a much better source of sustainable wealth, as livestock and crops make more of themselves, whereas precious gems and metals don't (spices do, but, most peasants didn't have the resources to make spice plantations).

[Thanas]

Depends on how far back you are talking about. For instance, in the Middle Ages, the Byzantine solidus was something of a universal currency, being accepted everywhere in Europe and the Levant. Most local currencies (for a given definition of "local") were often coins made of precious metals, anyway, so it often really wouldn't make sense to be trading in ingots of gold for local trade(especially since most people wouldn't have access to gold ingots), and they'd be roughly immune to regular inflation (minus, of course, of being officially adulterated to maintain gold supplies or people shaving down the edges of coins to make their own small gold ingots or something).

The roman solidus is actually the successor to the roman aureus, which itself was the successor to the drachme, although the latter never had that kind of pull the aureus had.

However, the topic is not about money, but items used in trade. Besides the usual (gold, silver, gems), people often neglect the more common items of barter and trade:

- Amber (probably even earlier than gold in northern european cultures)
- iron
- zink
- bronze.

Even after the Punic war, the romans were known to use bars of iron and zink as currency when dealing with foreigners. In fact, the legend of burning pigs being used to defeat elephants originates from a misinterpretation of such a bar of iron.

[NetKnight]

Tobacco was used as currency in the Colonial-era American South, and IIRC, pelts had a similar status in the fur-trading portions of North America, ie, New France and New Netherland. Eliminating the middleman and using cash crops as cash is a perfectly logical way to compensate for a lack of bullion, and I'd expect this phenomenon showed up in cash-crop colonies in instances I'm unaware of.

Alternatives back in the day would probably be things like land, livestock (origionally used as a measure of wealth), possessions, etc.

Indeed. The line between barter and money here is of course rather faint and artificial, but cattle served as a currency-like 'universal wealth index' in Sub-Saharan Africa. Land was actually used as currency at least once, in a way, as the basis of the French First Republic's Assignat, which worked out... well. Of course, given how the attendant hyperinflation was caused by printing more of these then the land they supposedly represented, it's really more fair to classify these with primitive *cough*badly managed, disastrous*cough* paper currencies.

[PeZook]

The only alternative to money is barter - by definition, since any good that can store value, cover debts, serve as a mean of exchange and measure worth of other goods is money.

This includes salt, cattle, sea shells and other things covered in the thread, as well as paper currency. Well, paper currency is technically a promissory note, but it has become a commodity in and of itself, just that it was artificially introduced for the express purpose of being money.

This is just my inner economist speaking, though. An interesting economic item was used by North American Indians in the form of embroidered belts (wampums) which were almost never worn, but were almost universally accepted as payment: they were pretty, durable and rare, just like gold. Incidentally, the examples in this thread is why you can laugh at people harping at the gold standardas the fix for all our economic woes. How about the Salt Standard? Or maybe Uranium Standard?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Or maybe Uranium Standard?

While Uranium is a good idea, I feel my evil self coming out and laughing with glee.

But that aside, that won't work with people screaming nonproliferation.

[salm]

Spices were sometimes used as well.

[Thanas]

Spices were sometimes used as well.

You're absolutely right. How on earth could I forget about that?

[folti78]

An interesting economic item was used by North American Indians in the form of embroidered belts (wampums) which were almost never worn, but were almost universally accepted as payment: they were pretty, durable and rare, just like gold.

Another interesting early money system was the Rai stones used by the inhabitants of Yap islands in Micronesia. These were multi-ton discs carved out of limestone from the island of Palau. Each individual rai's worth depended on things like the list of it's previous owners and/or the number of people killed during it's transport.

Incidentally, the examples in this thread is why you can laugh at people harping at the gold standardas the fix for all our economic woes. How about the Salt Standard? Or maybe Uranium Standard?

Eventually the introduction of iron tools to Yap led to a funny kind of inflation where stones made by iron tools worth less than the older ones...

[Setzer]

Even after the Punic war, the romans were known to use bars of iron and zink as currency when dealing with foreigners. In fact, the legend of burning pigs being used to defeat elephants originates from a misinterpretation of such a bar of iron.

Can you clarify this? Did they use Pig Iron bars to bribe some mercenaries or something like that?

[Thanas]

Even after the Punic war, the romans were known to use bars of iron and zink as currency when dealing with foreigners. In fact, the legend of burning pigs being used to defeat elephants originates from a misinterpretation of such a bar of iron.

Can you clarify this? Did they use Pig Iron bars to bribe some mercenaries or something like that?

Primarily when dealing with foreign states or celts, as well as using bars for the public treasury iirc. Or do you mean the legend of the burning pigs?

[Pelranius]

I believe that people in what is today now upper Nigeria used to trade in yams.

The Japanese during the Tokugawa era were paid in rice (at least the samurai class was).

[Broomstick]

Even after the Punic war, the romans were known to use bars of iron and zink as currency when dealing with foreigners.

Just a quick note - in English the name of the metal is usually written "zinc". Our usual perversity at work.

[Setzer]

yeah, I meant the pig thing.

[Zixinus]

yeah, I meant the pig thing.

Supposedly, the Roman army defeated Alexander the Great's (I think, not sure who's excatly) elephant army by using burning pigs. The burning pigs scared the elephants so much that it disrupted Alexander's batte lines and the Roman army was able to repel Alexander.

That's why they're on the coins.

I didn't think it was a legend though. I thought it was real and it certainly made sense with what I knew about elephants.

[Sarevok]

yeah, I meant the pig thing.

Supposedly, the Roman army defeated Alexander the Great's (I think, not sure who's excatly) elephant army by using burning pigs. The burning pigs scared the elephants so much that it disrupted Alexander's batte lines and the Roman army was able to repel Alexander.

That's why they're on the coins.

I didn't think it was a legend though. I thought it was real and it certainly made sense with what I knew about elephants.

What ? Alexander had an elephant army he used against Romans ?

[Maxentius]

What ? Alexander had an elephant army he used against Romans ?

Alexander was long dead. I believe the legend refers to the Pyrrhic Wars when referencing the Romans, and also crops up during the wars of succession amongst the Diadochi where Antipater is alleged to have employed them.

[Setzer]

What are the linguistic roots for it? How can " Payment with Iron" be mistaken for "Burning Pigs Scare Off Elephants?"

[Thanas]

yeah, I meant the pig thing.

Supposedly, the Roman army defeated Alexander the Great's (I think, not sure who's excatly) elephant army by using burning pigs. The burning pigs scared the elephants so much that it disrupted Alexander's batte lines and the Roman army was able to repel Alexander.

That's why they're on the coins.

That is the legend, if you subtitute Alexander with Phyrrus.

I didn't think it was a legend though.

It is.

I thought it was real and it certainly made sense with what I knew about elephants.

Not really, no. See more below.

What ? Alexander had an elephant army he used against Romans ?

Alexander was long dead. I believe the legend refers to the Pyrrhic Wars when referencing the Romans, and also crops up during the wars of succession amongst the Diadochi where Antipater is alleged to have employed them.

Correct.

Here is the legend as told by Aelian:

Elephantum a suillo timere pecore jam dixit: nunc explicare placet, quod ad Megaram accidit. Cum ab Antipatro Megarenses circumsederentur, acerrimeque Macedones incumberent, primo in sues pice liquida oblitos incendium Megarei excitarunt, deinde sic incensos in hostes immiserunt. Ii itaque furore inflammati, cum in elephantorum agmina incurrerunt, tum clamantes, nempe igni flagrantes, quasi quibusdam furiis elephantos incitarunt, et graviter perturbarunt. Itaque nullum neque ordinem tenebant, neque amplius, quamvis a primo aetatis tempore domiti fuissent, mansuefacti erant; sive quod sua quadam natura a suibus abhorreant, sive etiam quia horum absonum vocis acument perhorreant. Cujus regi non ignari educatores generis elephantini una cum suibus pullos alunt, ex consuetudine eos ut minus horreant.

Short translation: At the siege of Megara the inhabitants poured oil over pigs and burned them, their squeals caused the elephants to bolt in panic. As Aelian relates the romans later used squeling pigs to disrupt the Pyrrhian army, though iirc he does not say that they were burning.

Now, here is the trouble with that interpretation:
- all of it is written around 300 and 500 AD, which is at least 500 years removed from the event.
- Aelian is not a reliable source. He makes whole parts of his tales up. Observe the section on dragons:

The land of Ethiopia has a good neighbor which it is to be envied, in that bathing-place of the gods which Homer sings of as Ocean. Now that land is the mother of the size of the largest dragons; for they have grown there to over three hundred feet. And they have no name by which they are called from birth, but style themselves, elephant-slayers; and these dragons fight up to extreme old age.

It is therefore extremely unplausible that the romans used burning pigs at all. First of all, burning pigs are way too hard to control. If you set an animal on fire, you can be assured of one thing - it will not run in a straight line to the enemy. It is impossible to control.
So even if they did not use fire to make the pigs squeal, there are several further problems:
a) The romans already had great anti-elephant tactics by that time
b) Why should a roman army have an ample supply of pigs ready for a battle? Pigs were very, very expensive. Even more, wasting incendiary material better used for artillery also makes little sense.
c) It is quite unrealistic to assume that among the sounds of thousands of men marching, battling and dying the squeeling of pigs can be heard over long distances.
d) No ancient contemporary source ever mentions the use of pigs in warfare. You would think that Polybios or Diodor with their detailed description of roman military weapons would have included them.

The only evidence we have are some iron bars that bear the symbol of a pig and fire. However, there are far more likely explanations for that - for example, the ones I have heard are that the pig was either the symbol of the noble house of the consul who oversaw the casting of the bars or a symbol of a regional god or - the most likely explanation IMO - the description of the sacrificial feast after a great victory (most likely the one over Pyrrhus).

[Zixinus]

Going back on-topic: would it be safe to say that the most practically-transportable and most valuable but universal trade items were jewels?

[Broomstick]

That, or at certain times and places, spices.

Cocoa beans have also been used as currency in the Western Hemisphere, but that was about 500 years ago.

[Samuel]

Going back on-topic: would it be safe to say that the most practically-transportable and most valuable but universal trade items were jewels?

Probably. It was what the Romanovs sewed into their clothes before they meet an unfortunate end.

Of course, the value of jewelry varies in different places and they aren't exactly easily divisible- not to mention they are useless for people on the edge of subsistence.

[PainRack]

Were cash crops such as bananas ever used as currency? I remember someone garbling about how bananas and other fruit were held as standards of wealth in Dutch controlled Indonesia, as well as the Carribeans.

[Akhlut]

Are we considering spices as crops? If so, then, yes, they were used as something like currency. I don't imagine actual fruit being used as currency, per se, just due to issues of spoilage.

Tobacco, though, was used as a currency in the US (well, the British American Colonies).

http://www.answers.com/topic/tobacco-as-money

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continenta ... a_Currency

I don't know if you want better sources, but I'm on break at work, so, those will have to be found later.