I'm doing 5 things
Writing about alternative forms of money for PRACTICAL ANARCHY magazine, I restated the facts presented by the Encyclopedia Britannica: “By 700 BC, merchants were die-punching nuggets of electrum to mark them so they wouldn’t have to be reweighed.” But as I was writing, I told myself a joke. “If any merchant ever punched a nugget of electrum,” I said in my head, “it was to avoid taking back a bad penny.” In that moment, I realized that the Britannica was wrong about this. I sent the article in anyway. (You can read it at http://www.textfiles.com/magazines/PAO/pao-9310.txt and since then, I have been active in a “community currency” project called BAY BUCKS www.baybucks.org) But I went deeper into the research with this.
Many other books about coins, coin collecting, and money cite this same theory, that merchants invented coins by punching naturally-occuring lumps of electrum.
I wrote up my objections and sent them to THE CLASSICAL NUMISMATIC QUARTERLY. The editor rejected the article. As a writer, I had no problem with that. I asked the editor if there was something that needed to be fixed. He said, “We know this. You’re reading the wrong books.” The books at the Michigan State University library were from a previous generation. He sent me a bibliography. I acquired and read those and then followed the sources back to the original journal articles. I re-wrote the article and CNQ published it.
I continued the research and expanded the article. I sent the new work to the American Numismatic Association. They rejected it. I queried back and the editor said that the article contradicted the known authorities. So, I sent the CNQ publication in reply and asked for a reconsideration. The ANA submitted my work for peer review. Based on that, they published it… and granted me a Heath Literary Award for the work. I got a check for the article, a silver medal, and another check. It pays to question authority.
This is not the end of the story, but it is where I stopped, having moved on to other interests…
The Origins of Coinage by Michael E. Marotta
© Copyright 1993-2001 by Michael E. Marotta
We don’t know why coins were invented. It is true that we find them very useful today. We know that coinage was invented around 650 BC. However, the motivation for the striking of the first coins remains a mystery. ... The Tyrant theory could also explain the first coins as anonymous badges of conspiracy. (more)
http://www.coin-newbies.com/articles/origin.html
