Editing Commodity money (section)

== History ==
[[File:Manillaokhapo.JPG|thumb|A bronze ''okpoho'' or [[manillas|manilla]], the traditional commodity money in [[West Africa]] until the 1940s.]]

Commodities often come into being in situations where other forms of money are not available or not trusted, and these are social norms.
Various commodities were used in pre-Revolutionary America including [[wampum]] (shell beads), [[maize]] (corn), iron nails, [[Beaver#Commercial use|beaver pelts]], and [[tobacco]].

In Canada, where the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] and other fur trading companies controlled most of the country, fur traders quickly realized that gold and silver were of no interest to the [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]]. They wanted goods such as metal knives and axes. Rather than use a [[barter system]], the fur traders established the [[made beaver]] (representing a single beaver pelt) as the standard currency, and created a price list for goods:

* 5 pounds of sugar cost 1 beaver pelt
* 2 scissors cost 1 beaver pelt
* 20 fish hooks cost 1 beaver pelt
* 1 pair of shoes cost 1 beaver pelt
* 1 gun cost 12 beaver pelts

[[File:Hudson's Bay Company brass token set.jpg|thumbnail|Examples of [[Hudson's Bay Company]] tokens used {{circa|1854}}, representing one [[made beaver]] along with fractional values.]]

Other animal furs were convertible into beaver pelts at a standard rate as well, so this created a viable currency in an economy where precious metals were not valued.<ref>{{cite web
| title        = The Fur Trade and Hudson's Bay Company
| url          = http://www.canadiana.ca/hbc/stories/produits2_e.html#
| access-date  = 2015-01-05
| url-status   = dead
| archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20150108074343/http://www.canadiana.ca/hbc/stories/produits2_e.html
| archive-date = 2015-01-08
}}</ref> However, for convenience, Hudson's Bay post managers exchanged [[Hudson's Bay tokens|made beaver coins]], which were stamped pieces of copper or brass.

Long after gold coins became rare in commerce, the [[United States Bullion Depository|Fort Knox]] gold repository of the [[United States]] functioned as a theoretical backing for Federal Reserve. Between 1933 and 1970 (when the U.S. officially left the [[gold standard]]), one [[United States dollar|U.S. dollar]] was technically worth exactly 1/35 of a [[Troy weight|troy ounce]] (889&nbsp;mg) of gold. However, actual trade in [[Gold bar|gold bullion]] as a [[precious metal]] within the United States was banned after 1933, with the explicit purpose of preventing the "hoarding" of private gold during an economic depression period in which maximal circulation of money was desired by government policy. This was a fairly typical transition from commodity to representative to fiat money, with people trading in other goods being forced to trade in gold, then to receive [[paper money]] that purported to be ''as good as gold,'' and finally a [[Fiat money|fiat]] currency backed by government authority and social perceptions of value.

Cigarettes and [[gasoline]] were used as a form of commodity money in some parts of Europe, including Germany, France and Belgium, in the immediate aftermath of [[World War II]].<ref>{{cite news
| title       = Troublesome in Europe: Black Markets
| newspaper   = [[Leader-Post]]
| location    = Regina, Saskatchewan
| date        = 1946-01-05
| url         = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YL9TAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gzgNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5535%2C527446
| access-date = 2012-11-28
}}</ref> They have continued to be used as currency in war-torn locations experiencing inadequate supply of common goods and monetary collapse, such as during the [[Siege of Sarajevo]] in 1993<ref>{{Cite news |last=Sudetic |first=Chuck |date=1993-09-05 |title=Cigarettes a Thriving Industry in Bleak Sarajevo |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/05/world/cigarettes-a-thriving-industry-in-bleak-sarajevo.html |access-date=2022-03-31 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> or in Russian-occupied Kherson in 2022.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://zv.zp.ua/samaja-krepkaja-valjuta-jeto-sigarety-kak-vyzhivaet-herson-pri-rossijskoj-okkupacii | title="Самая крепкая валюта - это сигареты". Как выживает Херсон при российской оккупации | date=11 April 2022 }}</ref>