Thousands of years after the first towns turned into cities and human beings began trading goods with one another, the barter system gave rise to the need for forms of currency.
Valuable metal served as forms of receipt for grain stored in silos and was used this way for many hundreds of years. Ingots eventually turned into coins. But coins weren’t the only indicator of value. Some of these coins developed interesting characteristics, from their shape to the material used to make them.
Of course, coins weren’t the only representatives of money! Various other items were used to denote value and were passed between buyers and sellers. Here are 10 of the strangest currencies ever used.
1. Salt
Salt has been famously used as a form of currency since ancient times. According to legend, Roman soldiers were paid in salt. The word for salt in Latin is “sal,” which is thought to have evolved into the word “salarium,” from which we get the word “salary” today.
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The likely truth is that salt was used in lieu of coins when the latter was not available, and this practice was probably not that common.
Nevertheless, salt has been used as a form of currency and is still used as currency by nomads in the Danakil Plains of Ethiopia. This practice would have been far more widespread in ancient times, as salt was extremely valuable and sometimes difficult to get. Greek slave traders bartered salt for slaves, and this practice is thought to be the origin of the expression of someone “not being worth their salt.”
2. Squirrel Pelts
In Finland, the word raha refers to money. Hundreds of years ago, however, during the medieval era, the word meant “squirrel fur.” And that is exactly what was used in Finland and Russia as money. Pelts were the standard form of currency, while paws and snouts were chopped off the pelt for small change.
Red squirrel pelts were the most valuable. In Finland, ten of them were called a tikkuri, and 40 pelts were known as kiihtelys. At one point, the approximate value was 100 squirrel pelts for one cow. In Russia, specifically Novgorod, the 40-pelt sorochok was the standard unit of currency for large sums of tribute and was recorded in documents such as tally sticks and birch bark.
Given the extensive fur trade in these northern places, it is unsurprising that such a system developed.
3. Cheese
In Italy, there has been a long tradition of using large wheels of Parmesan cheese as currency. This practice goes back to the Middle Ages when it was used as collateral for bank loans as well as a form of currency.
A single wheel of Parmesan requires around 125 gallons of milk to make, and the cheese matures for at least 12 months. Some Parmesan cheeses are aged for as much as four years! As such, they are incredibly valuable. After the Second World War, when Italy was experiencing a recession, the practice of using wheels of cheese eased the financial situation, especially for cheesemakers.
Today, Credito Emiliano Bank owns two warehouses full of Parmesan cheese wheels. Almost half a million wheels of cheese are stored there, with a total value of almost $200 million.
4. Dolphin Teeth
Sure to draw a lot of concern in modern times, the use of dolphin teeth as a form of currency in the Solomon Islands is a practice that dates back hundreds of years and is still in use today.
This currency becomes especially valuable during global recessions when international currencies such as the US Dollar and the British Pound lose value. As a result, the dolphin hunting industry in the Solomon Islands has drawn criticism from environmentalists.
Dolphin teeth can be used for many transactions but are especially important in traditional roles. The purchase of a bride usually costs around 1,000 dolphin teeth, which represents the death of ten dolphins.
5. Tea Bricks
In many parts of East Asia, tea has traditionally been pressed into blocks, although the practice is not as common as it used to be.
Powdered tea fashioned this way is compressed by packing it into molds and then pressed into small bricks. In this form, the bricks can even be stamped with designs.
The high value of tea in this part of the world led to the formation of tea being used as money. The practice was particularly widespread in Siberia, where compressed tea, in the form of bricks or discs, served as edible currency.
In Tibet, the tea bricks used were “minted” in the Sichuan province to the east. Various qualities of tea were used to produce bricks of different values.
6. Rai/Fei Stones
On the island of Yap in Micronesia, stone discs carved with holes in the middle were used as currency. While this is not particularly surprising in itself, what makes it odd is that the discs ranged in size and weight. From discs just over an inch in diameter to huge discs several yards in diameter, many of these “coins” proved impossible to carry around.
Called rai stones on the north of the island and fei stones in the south, these discs served traditional purposes in trade, and larger ones came with an oral history included. These oral histories were a list of the previous owners, and once the stone changed owner, the oral history had to be updated.
The worth of the stones wasn’t just determined by size. The prestige of the owners could be taken into account, as well as any story about the stone’s existence. In one instance a villager attempted to transport a stone via the sea, but his boat capsized, and the sea claimed the stone. Despite this, the stone continued to change owners.
While immovable currency may seem odd at first, it is important to note that gold can be bought and traded without the ingots leaving the vault.
7. Notgeld
Notgeld, German for “emergency money,” is technically any money used as an alternative to real money in times of crisis when there is not enough real money to go around. Notgeld is generally associated with Germany and Austria during the First World War and the interwar years, when hyperinflation caused a massive financial crisis, and the Germans had to become inventive with their economics.
Places of issue could be companies, banks, or municipalities, and the money usually had an expiry date. As a result, there was a huge variety of Notgeld, and all the different forms have become very collectible.
The strangest part, however, is that although paper was usually used, as the economic struggles intensified, paper was not always available. Instead, other mediums had to be used. This included leather, wood, linen, reused cartons, playing cards, aluminum foil, and even stranger things such as coal, sulfur, and porcelain were used.
8. The Hungarian Pengo
Hyperinflation can do terrible things to a country’s economy and currency. Famous examples are the economic troubles in Germany after the First World War and, more recently, the economic crisis in Zimbabwe, which saw the issuing of a 100 trillion dollar note.
An even worse case of hyperinflation occurred in Hungary in 1946 following the Second World War. In the highest example of hyperinflation ever recorded, prices in the country doubled every 15 hours.
As a result, the 100 quintillion pengo banknote became the highest denomination banknote ever to be printed. It had a value of around 20 US cents.
9. Plastic Rubles of Transnistria
Transnistria is an unrecognized breakaway republic on the eastern edge of Moldova. In 2014, in addition to banknotes representing the same values, four denominations of plastic coins were introduced. Each denomination is a different shape for ease of use by those with vision problems. The 1 ruble coin is round, the 3 ruble coin is square, the 5 ruble coin is pentagonal, and the 10 ruble coin is hexagonal.
The plastic they are made from is a high-quality composite, and the coins are extremely difficult to bend or break. Despite their novel popularity, they have proven unpopular with the older generation, who believe the coins to be ugly and that they wear badly.
10. Airtime
In many countries around the world, from Romania to Kenya, from Egypt to Zimbabwe, a novel way to conduct transactions has been the transferral of mobile airtime. The trend started around 2011 and has continued to this day.
Airtime has an easily determined monetary value, so it is being swapped for goods and services. Usually, this practice is only used for minor transactions, but the trend is certainly an interesting development in business.
Money is simply any item that has a perceived value and is traded as payment for goods and services. Throughout history, dynamics within various cultures have led to the use of a wide variety of things as currency.
The future brings us new technologies, new opportunities, and new cultures where many strange things will be perceived as having value and will be used in the same way that money has always been used.
