From Roman silver to Mongol paper: the story of money

When money was worth its weight, and then stopped being

Since when does a coin's value come from what's stamped on its face rather than what it weighs? The answer from monetary history is an uncomfortable one: the first coins, the second ones and the third ones were worth exactly the metal they contained. That logic held until the mid-18th century. In 1933, the United States banned gold coins as legal tender, closing the era of metallic money.

The Roman denarius, the first documented case of debasement

The classic example is the denarius. In the 1st century it was nearly pure silver; by the 3rd century it retained barely 5% silver. Its nominal value, however, stayed the same. The result was runaway inflation and an economic crisis that contributed to the fall of Rome. It wasn't the only factor, but no sensible person dismisses it.

The same recipe was repeated with paper money. The Chinese were the first to use it, and the Mongol rulers the first to abuse the printing press, generating horrific inflation.

Hammered coins and other legends

Before industrial minting, coins were made with hammer blows, a noisy trade that popular tradition imagined in hellish forges. The technique changed, but the material stayed the same: precious metal. Until someone discovered that all it took was cutting the silver content to pocket the difference.

The history of money is the history of that temptation. That's why, when someone misses "real coins", they aren't entirely wrong: the real ones stopped existing quite a while ago. Today's are a different thing, and everyone can draw their own conclusions.