Gold not menetized

WI Gold were treated as very nice metal for jewelery, and later usable in certain specialized industrial applications but nothing more.

Would money develop in some different way?

Would both the colonization by Spain in the 1500s and the settlement of California after 1849 be slowed down?
 
Implications for world history would be huge. First of all, most ancient and medieval civilisations would face an even greater problem of money shortage.
 
Well, why was gold chosen?

Didn´t it basicly get menetized because it was the best jewelery metal?

Would it be replaced by silver.

Iron and bronze have value as well, but they are needed for other stuff.
 
Bright day
Do you mean monetized?
If so, great example of marginalizing the PoD.

What is money to us? A legal tender. Essentially we are drawing blank in regards to older times.

Older cultures will use anything for trading and paying: goats, kerchiefs, copper wire, iron bars, silver and, yes, golden thingamigies.

If gold has value same to our world, it seems fairly set up to become one of the standardized forms of payment. And even if it does not become a standard, what would change? Diamonds are not money and still have value and ahve driven people and rulers.

Then the quest is to deprive the value of gold, which frankly I cannot really see, unless you make shitloads of the stuff avaible. It is shiny and people are well... people
 
Bright day
Do you mean monetized?
If so, great example of marginalizing the PoD.

What is money to us? A legal tender. Essentially we are drawing blank in regards to older times.

Older cultures will use anything for trading and paying: goats, kerchiefs, copper wire, iron bars, silver and, yes, golden thingamigies.

If gold has value same to our world, it seems fairly set up to become one of the standardized forms of payment. And even if it does not become a standard, what would change? Diamonds are not money and still have value and ahve driven people and rulers.

Then the quest is to deprive the value of gold, which frankly I cannot really see, unless you make shitloads of the stuff avaible. It is shiny and people are well... people

Perhaps if, say, Alien Space Bats descend down to our cavemen ancestors when they first learned to heard animals and plants, make them realize that they are primitive communists and that that's a beautiful thing, then our cavemen ancestors would preserve their communism - reaching a state of free-for-all no currency market - before they can even smelt gold.
 
Perhaps if, say, Alien Space Bats descend down to our cavemen ancestors when they first learned to heard animals and plants, make them realize that they are primitive communists and that that's a beautiful thing, then our cavemen ancestors would preserve their communism - reaching a state of free-for-all no currency market - before they can even smelt gold.

And, somehow, the Soviet Union is still broken apart in 1991! Argh!
 
Real Money
item of exchange,
The Indians of the american interior used Shells, the south sea islanders used carved Stones, People in a poker game, use Red, White & Blue pieces of plastic. As long as everyone agrees ...........

Measure of Value
If a Pig costs 1 stone and a cow costs 2 stones, whe can easily see that the cow is twice as valueable as Pig.

Store of Value.
If I sale my cow for two stones, in the fall and buy a pig for one of them, I expect that in the spring, with The 1 extra stone will still be able to buy a pig.
If the Store of value is stable enuff*, I would be able to do this several years later, instead of just the next spring.

This is where the Rareity, of the item used, comes in.
Wampum was Ocean Shells hard to come by in the interior. Carved stones took a lot of time & work to produce. Metals like Gold Silver and Copper in Europe and Asia, Take a lot of work to produce, and are rare enuff that you can't just run out and get some more, whenever you want*.

There were early Bronze and Iron coins, but as bronze and iron lost their rareity, so did the Coins lose their value.
With modern industrial processes, there is a scariscy of Rare items, suitable for Items of Exchange. This is why most future SciFi stories never mention what the "Credit" most use, is based on.


*Failure to satify parts 2 & 3 is Why paper currency is not Real Money
 
Perhaps if, say, Alien Space Bats descend down to our cavemen ancestors when they first learned to heard animals and plants, make them realize that they are primitive communists and that that's a beautiful thing, then our cavemen ancestors would preserve their communism - reaching a state of free-for-all no currency market - before they can even smelt gold.

And this is then in the ASB forum...
 
Salt, shells, pearls and stuff like silk was all used in OTL as a compact and universally accepted barter good: i.e. money.
 
Why not food? Crops can be continuously regenerated, and they actually serve a practical purpose, unlike shiny metals. They are difficult enough to come by, yet still plentiful enough that the majority can possess it, like paper money or metal coinage.

For example, a certain amount of wheat or rice would be regulated to equal a base unit, and one's wealth would be based on how much of that base unit of wheat or rice that one has. Other kinds of crops, such as flax or barley or rye, would have a different value, but still multiplied or divided based on the base unit.

Essentially, a person's wealth could be judged objectively by how much farmland they had, and how much food they could produce and store, and circulate in the community. Money wouldn't have to be used as a medium to obtain food at a market, because food is the money; one wouldn't have to work for money and buy food, because one would be paid with food.
 
Food was used as an equivalent to precious metal-based money in a barter economy, but cash based on gold or other precious metals has 3 big advantages. First, it lasts a lot longer - coins are far more resistant to decay than any foodstuff. Second, they are much more portable. A few coins in the pocket can represent as much value as a wagonload or multiple wagonloads of food. Third, coins are ONLY good for using as a unit of exchange, so there is no conflict between different uses.
 
Gold, with it's very handy properties for primitive civilisations, was considered valuable long before it was monetised. God didn't direct the Ark of the Covenant to be built of copper, that would rust and turn green and look pretty dodgy in a short while, hardly an appropriate vessel for the Covenant with The Almighty. Considering the special status attached to gold, probably as a direct result of its unique characteristics, even if it was not monetised it would still be considered a lxury of great value.
 
Top