So I've been reading Wealth of Nations recently and was fascinated by the part where Smith talked about where money came from. To skip past his wordiness and confusingness (;)), basically it involves you to stop and think about where exactly money came from. Not bills and coins--but where and when gold and silver became the primary method of currency. Why did people decide that gold and silver should be used as money?
To cut to the chase, basically Smith argues that its because of the prettyness of gold and hence it's valuable, it's easily transportable, it can be in small enough quantities that you can buy small items with it, and it's rare. But I realized that this does seem to be a rather unique instance where money didn't have to be created this way.
After all, other people used different objects. In the old times, cattle was the primary instrument of currency. The Aztecs used cocoa powder. And I think that some of the eastern countries in Asia used spices at some point.
So I began to think about why gold/silver would be used in my world, and what other instruments of currency could be used to make it more unique and realistic, and am trying to brainstorm some ideas. So have any of you thought about what would be the currency of your world other than gold/silver? Or do any of you have ideas to help me along with figuring this out? Any help would be appreciated.
Guess I should have searched a bit harder for similar threads before making this new one. If you want to go ahead and merge my thread with that one in order to provide greater fluency, go ahead.
