Non-coin currency

[dulsin]

Well, for what I know, the ancient Finns used animal skins and hides as currency...

I still remember a picture from my grade-school history book. It depicted a man and a boy in a snowy taiga, with only one tree around. The man was aiming his bow, coupled with a blunt arrow, at a squirrel sitting in the tree, and the boy was getting ready to catch the falling squirrel.

If I'm not mistaken, Finland wasn't the only place where animal hides were used to pay for stuff.

If you want that sword it will be 28 minks 4 beavers and not a racoon less!

 

[Dogbrain]

yep. it is why the America dollar is called a buck, as in buckskin. Shells are other form.

This made for some "interesting" interactions on the frontier, where a general trader would take in pelts and trade out goods (firearms, ammunition, cloth, etc.). The trader would sell the pelts eastwards for currency, which would be used to purchase goods from the factories for trade. The currency side of it had a modern market, where prices would fluctuate. The pelt side of it was with local tribes to had no understanding of market fluctuation and no desire to understand it. What they knew was that, in father's day, a musket went for so many pelts, and that was what they expected to pay for a musket today. Any demand for more pelts was cheating, as far as they were concerned. "Prices" were fixed social conventions and it was a matter of honor to adhere to that.

So, a lot of Indiana commerce was dominated by what a few Frenchmen had agreed upon with the Shawnee in the 1600s.

 

[Hecateus]

Quantities of Salt were traded in the old world, esp N. Africa.

The Ancient Masters in my campaignworld trade the collected soul-fragments (XP) of fallen heroes who failed in the dungeons set up by the Ancients. Muwahahahaha!