Student Handout: The History of Money
From Gold Bars to Debit Cards

Before money was invented, people would obtain goods they wanted by trading goods they already owned. Indigenous peoples in North America traded furs for buffalo meat. In the Middle East, people exchanged camels for gold jewellery and indigenous peoples in Africa traded elephant tusks for yams. This system of trading goods is called bartering. Bartering is still in use today. For example, an Italian car company that built a factory for Russia was repaid in cars.

In spite of its advantages, bartering creates some difficulties. Can you image what they are? To avoid these problems, people used materials such as gold that could be weighed and divided into small portions for exchanging items of lesser value and large chunks for items of greater value. These metals were eventually cut into disks called coins and stamped with the insignia of the government that made them. The History of Money interactve timeline that you have just read through online shows some of the milestones in the evolution of money to its modern forms.

Questions Related to the Timeline

Instructions: Answer the following questions on your timeline and/or in the space provided below. Feel free to discuss each questions with your partner.

Opening Activity

Study the coin information shown below. For each of the four oldest coins, use an arrow to mark the year on your timeline that each coin was issued. Under each arrow, carefully record the specific year that each was produced.

Additional Questions

Use the online interactive timeline and/or your paper copy to help you and your partner answer the following.

  1. How many years after the creation of the first inscribed coin was the coin featuring Alexander the
    Great issued?
  2. How many years after the first dated coin did the Egyptians produce the coin with the image of an eagle?
  3. Jason saw an old coin engraved with the date 252 B.C. How did he know it was not a genuine coin?
Photo courtesy of Edgar L. Owen, Ltd.
http://www.edgarlowen.com		 Photo courtesy of Dr. Tom Buggey, Cordova, TN Photo courtesy of Robert Kokotailo,
http://www.calgarycoin.com
The first coins were used in
Turkey in 750 B.C. They were
pellets of electrum, an alloy of
gold and silver.		 The hole in the centre of this coin allows it to be worn on a string around the neck. Coins of this type were first issued in China around 600 B.C. This coin was issued around
480 B.C. and features a small
figure of Victory flying above a
charioteer.
  Coin design courtesy of the Royal Canadian Mint/ Image de la pièce,
courtoisie de la Monnaie royale canadienne.
Coins like these were issued in
Egypt around 200 B.C. Like
many modern coins, it features
an eagle.		 The Canadian one dollar coin was
first issued in 1987 as a cost saving
measure, to replace one
dollar bank notes.
  1. Using your timeline , locate the dates that are marked B.C. What does this mean?
    1. How many hash marks are there between each 100 year interval on the B.C. part of the time line?
    2. What time interval separates two consecutive hash marks? Explain.

  2. Observe the dates marked A.D. What does this mean?
    1. How many hash marks are there between each 100 year interval on the A.D. part of the time line?
    2. What time interval separates two consecutive hash marks? Explain.

  3. Mark the date on your time line to show when the Canadian one dollar coin was issued.
  4. How many years after the issue of the Egyptian coin was the Persian coin used?
  5. Use your time line to help you calculate the time between each pair of dates.
    1. 336 B.C. and 310

    2. 494 B.C. and 1519

    3. 670 B.C. and 1937

Homework

Assignment

Study the timeline provided again. Take the time to teach someone at home what you learned today about the history of money. Have that individual sign below and make a comment about how effective you have been informing them about this topic.

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