Ancient paper money

The history of printed money is as old, in some ways older, than minted money. Before coins were invented in about 660BCE, when trade was basically barter, and goods and products were traded back and forth between tradesmen, artisans, citizens and officials, excess goods were stored at home, or in community warehouses or other public facilities. This necessitated the development of methods to keep track of who had what stored where - leading to the development of writing itself.

The earliest clay-tablet storage records so far discovered were small, usually square, relatively thin, bits of clay with a few symbols representing various products and their quantity pressed into the clay and given as receipts to the people depositing their produce in common warehouses. Since these products were fungible; i.e. exactly alike, its probable that from the first day, people owning such receipts began to trade them for goods or other receipts for different stored products owned by other people. These exchanges would have been much more convenient than trying to carry large quantities of products home, to a shop, or from one storage location to another. Thus, with little conscious recognition, and no doubt crude by modern standards, hand-printed (albeit on clay) money was born. Only later, when tradesmen realized some highly-regarded metals, especially gold and silver, could be traded for just about any product would coins have been invented.

Although “paper money” is a term used to describe most government and institutional printed money, the term is a misnomer. It would be far more accurate to refer to banknotes as “printed money”, because can also be found made of clay, wood, pounded bark, cloth, leather, parchment, metal foils, and in recent years, plastic with paper-like characteristics. Printed or written money as we know it is nothing more than a receipt for goods, services or labour, which can be traded for other goods, services or labour in lieu of coins or specie.

Use of receipts representing money in the modern sense can be traced to early Roman times, when money lenders would accumulate deposits of coin to lend to borrowers, and write receipts to depositors to certify ownership of the amounts deposited and lent out. Some money lenders would let depositors endorse their receipts to third parties. Once receipts for specific amounts of value, but not specifying a bearer by name, were written and circulated, true paper money came into being.

Lenders also formed business liaisons between themselves, recognizing and accepting receipts issued by other members of the same group, such as a banking guild. This practice soon broadened to include lenders in other towns, some significantly distant from one another. Given the dangers of travel between population centres 2000 years ago, the convenience for travellers of obtaining a certificate of deposit from a lender in one place, recognized by a lender in another, was a great advance over carrying large amounts of gold or silver on their person. As for the lenders, when they needed to clear balances, they could pool their resources to form guarded caravans to protect the movement of gold between cities. Few individual travellers could afford such services on their own.

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