Welcome to Money for the rest of us. This is a personal finance show on money, how it works, how to invest it, and how to live without worrying about it.

I'm your host David Stein today is episode 316.

It's titled, Paper Rocks or Digits.

What Makes the Best Money?

I've been reading a number of books recently on money, Money the Unauthorized Bography by Felix Martin, and

Money The True Story of a Made Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein. Both of these books have examples of different types of money

that have been used in the past. Fascinating examples that you might not be aware of.

And we want to look at them and think about what is it that makes something money.

Money evolves and has evolved and will continue to evolve and what we use as money today might be very different decades from now.

The first example is from the island of Yap. This is an island in the Western Pacific, part of the

Caroline Islands. It is now part of the federated states of Micronesia.

The people of Yapp lived on their own and were separated from other cultures for many many years.

Well, in 1903, an anthropologist who had also been trained as a medical doctor from New England,

William Henry Furnace went to YAP for two months and study this people.

And it wasn't a very advanced economy with basically three products, fish, coconut, and sea cucumbers,

but they had something unique that they used for money.

Furnace describes his money as large solid thick stone wheels ranging in diameter from a foot to 12 feet, having the center a hole varying in size with the diameter

of the stone, wherein a pole may be inserted sufficiently large and strong to bear the weight

and facilitate transportation.

This was their money. It was called Fay, FEI, or also it's called R-A-I.

The money was quarried in the it's called R-A-I.

The money was quarried in an island 300 miles away, Babyl-Thuop.

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