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Egypians made metal rings which some historians think they used as money.
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By 1100 BC in China, a system of using miniature replicas of the objects to be traded.
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The first coins were made in Lydia. They were made of discs of electrum, that it was a mix of silver and gold. The first known gold coin was by the Lydian kinf Croesus.
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In China the first paper money was used.
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By 1600 AD Europeans were using more and more metal coins, made with metal taken form their colonies.
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In 1685 Canadian colonies began to use paper money and this innovation led to a huge increase in international trade.
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In the 1700s a pirate walked into a shop he might try to pay in pieces of eight. A Spanish eight real coin was often split up into bits to pay for things. leaving the bits as change.
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The threepenny was only scrapped in 1971. In the English colonies of the West Indies half a real was four bits and a quarter was two bits, a phrase used by people in the USA today.
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In the modern world many people use plastic cards called debit cards. The cards transfer money from their bank account to the shop's bank account.
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People also use money they don't even have yet paying with credit cards. They then pay money back later.
