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They set amounts of interest on debt, fines for "wrongdoing", and compensation in money for various infractions of formalized law. It has long been assumed that metals, where available, were favored for use as proto-money over such commodities as cattle, cowry shells, or salt, because metals are at once durable, portable, and easily divisible. [54]
This distinguishes it from "limping standard" bimetallism, where both gold and silver are legal tender but only one is freely coined (e.g. the monies of France, Germany, and the United States after 1873), and from "trade" bimetallism, where both metals are freely coined but only one is legal tender and the other is used as "trade money" (e.g ...
The use of commodity money is similar to barter, but a commodity money provides a simple and automatic unit of account for the commodity which is being used as money. Although some gold coins such as the Krugerrand are considered legal tender , there is no record of their face value on either side of the coin.
In the final era of global metal-based money, i.e. the first quarter of the 20th century, monometallic gold use has been the standard. Zimbabwe has a multi-currency system that recognizes the gold Mosi-oa-Tunya (coin) and the ZiG, a digital token backed by gold, as legal tender in parallel with the Zimbabwean dollar (2019–2024) and the US dollar.
A money-strapped Congress, which had to pay for the war, eventually adopted the Legal Tender Act of 1862, issuing United States Notes backed only by treasury securities and compelled the people to accept the new notes at a discount; prices rose except for those who had gold and/or silver coins.
Small, decorative tooth-like projecting points on the inside edge of a coin. [5] designer The artist or creator of a coin's design. [1] device A pattern or emblem used in the design of a coin. die An engraved metal piece used for transferring the design to the coin. In a vertical arrangement, the upper (or hammer) die is typically used for the ...
The alternative to a commodity money system is fiat money which is defined by a central bank and government law as legal tender even if it has no intrinsic value. Originally fiat money was paper currency or base metal coinage, but in modern economies it mainly exists as data such as bank balances and records of credit or debit card purchases, [3] and the fraction that exists as notes and coins ...
Single and split tally sticks in the Swiss Alpine Museum – similar items may have been used in debt based economic systems thought to pre-date the use of coinage. Credit theories of money, also called debt theories of money, are monetary economic theories concerning the relationship between credit and money. Proponents of these theories, such ...