MessageToEagle.com – Even ordinary people were involved in the flourishing trade and soon Lydia became one of antiquity’s most prosperous kingdoms.
A constant stream of merchants from all the known world often visited Lydia to buy a great variety of coveted goods. First stores emerged in Lydia.
All our shops worldwide originate from the Kingdom of Lydia because the Lydians were the first to establish retail shops in permanent locations.
Counterfeiting and falsification of coins and banknotes have a long history all over the world. It began even before the appearance of currency as we understand it today.
Prehistoric falsifiers made many successful attempts to produce valuable coins of worthless metal and the owners of money have always tried to avoid counterfeits.
In Greece, for example, prehistoric falsifiers covered cheap copper with a thin layer of gold and tin they used to cover with the thin layer of silver.
In the 1930s, empty casings of Mexican silver dollars were filled with worthless metal, for example, tin.
There has also been attempts to file round coins and make them similar to a British Fifty pence coin, a rounded heptagon.
In antiquity, often counterfeiting of gold and silver coins were widespread so merchants used to the check the authenticity of coins by cutting them in half.
One of other means to examine the authenticity of carat gold, was a black stone.
At first, merchants carved stone with golden needles of different carats, then they could compare marks made by examined coins with those carved on the black stone.
In the 9th century, the Chinese seemed to be tired of using their unwieldy coins.
The 9th century coins were made of inexpensive metal, they were large, heavy and with a rectangular hole in the middle.
Several coins could be strung together on a rope.
They were covered with very simple inscriptions which could be easily counterfeited. It was time to change them with something better and easier to use. Now, they prefered to use warrianties.
A popular approach was to deposit coins and get a guarantee note on the coins value from a merchant. The new banknotes were much easier to carry than coins and could at any time be changed into the coin again.
They became so popular that they were also used in trade.
Their popularity reached the Emperor who inspired by the idea, ordered to give the history first banknotes which rather appeared more of distress than of enthusiasm.
In 1023, a government agency was formed to print paper money in China.
The banknotes were much more difficult to counterfeit than iron coins. Soon they became a successful invention.
But throughout history, money was involved not only in trade operations.
Depictions of Jesus appear on Byzantine coins of all times. The Islamic caliphate minted coins modeled on the previous Byzantine type of coin.
Both have the same monetary unit. St. Eligius (588-660) was a deeply religious and very unique person. He was a skilled goldsmith and coin maker of great skill. His own wealth, all his money and influence were used by him for spiritual purposes.
Entering the priesthood in 641, he set up monasteries and erected churches. His compassion led to his being known for his good deeds, and particularly for his persuasive work in raising founds to redeem captives given sentence of death or sold into slavery.
Money helped him… to help others.
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First version of this article (part 2) was published on January 26, 2015
Expand for referencesReferences:
G. Davies, “History of Money”
S.R. Wagel, “Chinese Currency And Banking”