Tales of Weird Currency

What Are Weird Currencies?

Are you getting bored with the debate over digital currency vs. fiat currency? Maybe you're even tired of people bringing up physical currency like gold and silver. If so, maybe you'll be amused by some examples of some weird currencies that have been used in the world.

To be clear, these are NOT examples of barter. These are examples of odd things that were used as money.

Rai Stones

For example, what sort of wallet do they use for these?

Photo sources: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeirdCurrency

The picture above shows Rai stones from Yap Islans in Micronesia. In the old days, the population was so small that everybody knew who owned which stone. In fact, some of the stones are now underwater, but they still serve as currency. Just like digital currency, they weren't carried around. I'm not too sure how they made change.

Clay Figures

It seems like this kind of currency might be pretty easy to forge. However, some ancient civilizations around the Babylonians created clay figures that represented livestock or objects that the currency was worth. In China, they also had currency in the shape of objects that the money was valued at.

Salt Blocks

Most of you probably know that salt served as a currency in many ancient civilizations. Salary comes from the Latin word for salt.

There's an ancient salt block from the days when people would "stack" salt in the bottom-left of this image:

People could actually lick the salt block to make certain that it was real. They could also break off a little piece to make change or small purchases. Of course, salt might also qualify as a commodity, but it wasn't that bad of a currency.

Green Stamps

Is anybody here old enough to remember Green Stamps from back in the day? You would get some of these stamps for purchases you made at the store. You could save them in little books. Once you had enough stamps, you go trade them for items that you wanted in a Green Stamps outlet. There are also Canadian "tire stamps" that worked in a similar way for a tire outlet. Anyway, people would also use these as a sort of informal currency, and even some other merchants would accept them for payment.

Image source: Wikipedia

Anyway, the FTC even got involved because S&H Green Stamps had become such a popular form of "scrip" currency in the USA. source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTC_v.Sperry%26_Hutchinson_Trading_Stamp_Co.

The Supreme Court told consumers they didn't own the stamps and could only collect them and redeem them at the company's outlets. I'm sure people just kept doing what they were doing anyway, but it's interesting that the government was worried about Green Stamps.

Anyway, in the 1980s, stores started to get the idea that they could do better with their own loyalty programs, so Green Stamps declined, but they were around for quite a long time.

Who Cares About Weird Currency?

The digital currency boom has generated a lot of debate about the nature of currency. It's interesting to look at some currencies from the past to see that they weren't always the things that we think of as money today.

Does anybody else have examples of weird currency? Please leave your currents and thoughts of value here! I LOVE TO READ COMMENTS!