Currency and Its History

The necessities of man, his activities and social bonding had been increasing since the
creation of man and the dawn of civilization. At the beginning, the necessities of men
were very limited and they met those necessities by exchanging additional commodities
after meeting his demand.

This “exchange of commodities” is known as Barter System.
In course of time with the increase of human knowledge and intelligence the human
activities specially the ‘Barter System’ expended much and along with them human
necessities started to increase. The horse carriage, boats and in later times the ships
made an important contribution behind it. After the removal of communication
problems the efforts of collecting the necessary commodities were increasing from
different geographical positions. From village to village, from village to town and from
country to country the necessity of the medium of exchange in case of exchanging
commodities were felt intensely. Except the medium of exchange the piling of deposits
and the measure of value of commodities had played a great role for the creation of
currency.
The history of currency is very amazing. It is seen from the pages of history that coins
of different types and shapes were used in different countries in different times. In
different ages the uses of kowri, the teeth of shark, the teeth of elephant (ivory), stone,
pearl, burnt clay, bronze, silver and gold were used as coins (as the medium of
exchange). The uses of metal coins did not last for a long time because of some difficulties in their
uses, carrying, transportation and other necessities. The use of metal coins increased
with the increase of world population. So the supply of metal became short, more over
because of the uses of gold and silver jewelries and other objects, use of the paper
money was introduced in the nineteenth century. Though at present metal coins being
used with the paper money, yet the uses f metal coins are gradually becoming limited.
Using paper money has been greatly increasing because of availability of papers, easy
transferable and compatibility to different types of security measures.

Click here for government certification in Accounting, Banking & Finance