The most amazing fact about money. Interesting facts about money

An important and integral tool of modern society is money passing through a huge number of hands. The philistine, treating them as a means of calculation, does not even think that he involuntarily touches history. In this article we will consider the most interesting facts about money.

Interesting about money: how it all began

The earliest coins from an alloy of silver and gold (called electron) appeared in Libya in the 7th century BC. E. The first paper money was introduced in China due to the lack of raw materials for making copper coins. A surprising fact about money: paper bills were originally used in funeral ceremonies of the deceased. They were burned at the stake near the grave, believing that in this way they would fall into a different world, where they would make life much easier for the departed to the next world.

In mass usage, paper money appeared much later. The greed of the rulers and the understanding of the possibility of printing an immense number of pieces of paper with a drawing led to their depreciation; The cost of candy wrappers decreased almost 70 times, which forced to reintroduce coppers.

China is a country of romantics

A surprising fact about money: in modern China paper bills are an excellent way to find your other half. To do this, the girls and young people in the search for them write their data and the desired requirements for the partner, after which they let the money into circulation. Unfortunately, the most popular papers in the world are also the dirtiest bills, which number on their surface about hundreds of thousands of microbes.

First money

There are such interesting facts about money: in ancient times, items of the highest value at the time of their era were used for settlement operations: stones, shells, bird feathers, dog teeth, pork tails, dried fish, glass beads, cocoa beans, tea tiles, Tobacco, corn and rice grains, livestock. In ancient Russia, when trading with the eastern countries, martensite skins (which served as the coins of the coons) were used, in China - pieces of silk, and in Asia - opium.

With the development of civilizations, commodity barter became more uncomfortable, then the exchange of products began to be made for copper coins.

History of the origin of coins of round shape

What other interesting facts about money? Modern coins have a familiar round shape. However, this was not always the case. During the excavations in Ancient Greece, we found thin strange rods, similar in weight and size. They were depicted in the frescoes of the past period, and, as scholars have established, it was just the ancient Greek coins. The mating of such coins had a certain value, densely placed in the palm of your hand and had the name "drachma", which has survived to this day.

The familiar round shape of the coins came from Ancient Rome, where they were printed in the temple of Juno. First, they minted the images of goddesses, which over time changed to images of emperors - great and contributed to the development of their country.

The images of living rulers were not accepted, although Alexander of Macedon did not consider this a bad sign, having ordered to mint his own image on money.

Russia: own history of money

In Russia, as in other countries, before the appearance of paper money in everyday life were ordinary coins. The history of Russia has kept many surprising facts about money. Here is one of them: when Lomonosov was paid a 2000 rubles bonus, he needed to hire workers with carts to transport it, because the total weight of the reward was about 1 ton.

An interesting story is the origin of the familiar to all the word "penny". In ancient times, on the minted coins, less than a ruble in nominal value, George the Victorious was depicted with a spear in his hand. Such money at the behest of Ivan the Terrible began to be called kopei, and then acquired the familiar name. A penny today is considered the smallest coin, but under Peter I there was a coin of a smaller denomination. It was 1 / 8th of a penny, weighed 0.17 grams and was called a half-cup. The largest coin (copper ruble) weighing 1,636 kg was released in 1725 in the time of Catherine I. There is such an amazing fact about money that in Sweden the heaviest coin weighed 19 kilograms and was released in the 18th century. It had a rectangular shape, and in the corners of it there were impressions of the royal seal.

Million dollars how much does it weigh?

Almost every person at least once imagined himself the owner of a million dollars. So, amazing facts about money suggest that if the future wealth is put on the scales, then in hundred-dollar bills its weight will be 10 kilograms, and in one-cent coins - 246 tons. And if you gradually accumulate coins, which practically all children of our planet are engaged in, you can pour out the bells of peace, as was done by Japanese children. One of them is installed in New York.

The most surprising fact about money is their uselessness. In 1923 in Germany during the period of hyperinflation, money completely lost its value and cost so little that they pasted walls instead of wallpaper or given to children for games.

10 interesting facts about money

1. For the production of paper money, flax and cotton are used in a ratio of 1: 3, which determines the strength of the product, capable of withstanding 400 double bends.
2. About 1/3 of the world's population live on less than $ 2 a day, more than a billion people spend less than $ 1 a day.
3. In Canada, the first bills were playing cards. And in Russia in the beginning of the 19th century, money was produced and circulated until 1826, made from the skin of seals.
4. In the world in circulation, according to rough estimates, is about 845 billion dollars.
5. The first woman depicted on the money, and the only one of its kind is Martha Washington, whose portrait is adorned with a silver coin worth 1 dollar.
6. Facts about money say that the life of a $ 100 bill is on average 7 years and 4 months.
7. Plastic credit card was invented in 1949 by Frank McNamara during dinner in a restaurant. The idea of not having cash in large quantities, and replacing them with a card, came to a head when Frank did not have enough cash to pay for dinner.
8. The most unusual name was a Venetian coin, dated 16th century - "newspaper". The usual printed publications began to be so called an order of magnitude later. The cost of the first printed news on paper was equated to one newspaper.
9. The largest cash bill was a $ 100,000 denomination. They released it in 1934 for the purpose of using it in large banking operations. By the way, the sign of $ was invented in 1788 by Oliver Pollock. In the US, the most popular are 1- and 20-dollar bills, in the rest of the world they prefer $ 100. In the world, the most common franc is used in 34 countries.
10. There is the following surprising fact about money: out-of-circulation and obsolete bills in Russia serve as raw materials for the construction of roofing material, and in Germany they also produce fertilizers.

Such interesting facts about money give rise to reflection on the unusual and multifaceted history of the means of calculation that are habitual for all.