For example most regions had a rural/ agrarian economy and could have used cattle horns. It would have represented their amount of cattle they had and therefore their actual wealth.
I think there is a small group of people in africa doing something like that with fish right now.
So why settle for metal coins?
In: Economics
Precious metals are:
1. Durable. They don’t wear down much in coin form, only doing so very slowly.
2. Consistent. You can weigh one to know that it’s (more or less) real.
3. Difficult to fake. Can’t really *counterfeit* precious metals. Horns, on the other hand…
4. Easy to control in supply terms. Cattle horns can be made by people who aren’t the state.
5. Portable. Cattle horns are huge. Coins are small. Lots of coin is heavy, but that’s a problem for later.
6. Mostly useless for anything else other than aesthetic/cultural value before the advent of electronics. Horns have much more material value, risking currency *destruction*.
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