(no subject)

[pauamma]

https://twitter.com/greenleejw/status/1206606000456896512

And now I wonder: did gold and silver also start as in-kind currencies before getting formalized into coins and standard weights?

Comments

[pauamma]

Yes, if it was before the Vikings started using coins. If it was after, it hints at the subsistence of an earlier state where they used gold and silver as in-kind payment only, but may not be in itself hard evidence for the existence of a prior system. (I'm not sure what qualifies as hard evidence to historians, but that's another debate.)

[chalcopyrite]

::squints at memory:: I think coins were included in some of the hacksilver finds -- cut up, because they were used the same way, by weight, not by face value.

[pauamma]

*nod* Thanks for the elaboration.

[sami]

When Vikings started using coins, initially they were coins they got from the English. When they started minting their own coins, they still put English monarchs on them for a while.

No-one seems to be sure entirely why. Like, did they make their molds from English coins or even use English molds, or did they just think that was How Coins Worked?