Currency is a term that comes from Latin mountain and what makes mention of the piece of gold, silver or other metal which, shaped like a disc and minted with various reasons to prove its value and legitimacy, is used as exchange medium (money).
For example: “This juice is very cheap: you can buy it with just a couple of coins”, “I need coins for the collective”, “The grocer did not give me change since he said he had no coins”.
The coins emerged as a replacement for ingots, plates and other elements that were used as a means of payment but that are uncomfortable and difficult to transport. The first official coins were minted in Lidia between the years 680 and 560 BC However, much older coins would exist (5000 BC, found in China).
The value that the currency has had throughout history is undeniable because there have been many of them, all or almost all with singularities that made them different from the rest not only because of their costs or their forms but also because of their names. Thus, for example, we could highlight the so-called Philippi, which received their name from King Philip II of Macedonia, or those known as Dáricos, which were coined with that name by the Persian monarch Darius.
It is also important to bear in mind that it is essential that every coin has the following parts in order to be named as such: the edge, the obverse or face, the reverse, the legend, the imprint, the type or the mark.
Taking into account all these factors and many more, such as graphite or fields, is how the different currencies can be differentiated. At this time, among the most important in legal tender are the dollar, the euro, the yen or the pounds, among others.
Currently the coins work as measure of value, direct acquisition instrument or means of hoarding wealth. Security standards to prevent counterfeiting have multiplied in all countries of the world.
In this sense, we would also have to make clear a series of expressions that make use of the term at hand with that meaning. Thus, for example, we carry out the use of “current currency” to refer to the money that is in legal tender at that time.
In the same way, there is the “hard currency”. It is a union of words that we use very frequently to refer to the cash that we use to make our purchases.
By extension, it is known as a currency any banknote, paper or currency of legal tender. For the economy, the currency is the set of representative signs of the circulating money in a country: “The government must defend the value of the currency to protect the purchasing power of the population”, “We have to accept that the euro is the most powerful currency in the world”.
The science that studies the history of coins and money in general is called numismatics, as well as the collecting of coins and medals.
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