Читать книгу Coin Collecting For Dummies - Neil S. Berman - Страница 23

Throughout the years, people around the world have experimented with a variety of items used to denote value. The natives of Papua New Guinea valued the dried carcasses of the beautiful bird of paradise. The Yap Islanders valued huge round stones. The early Chinese created copper money in the shape of knives. Native Americans made and used wampum (clamshells, handmade into beads, polished, drilled, and strung on strands of leather) as a medium of exchange. All sorts of innovative methods have been used to facilitate trading, but none of them became so convenient and important as those little round pieces of metal we call coins.