The First Money
The first money was not coins or paper money.
All kinds of things were used as money.
For example, shells were used in China around 1200 B.C.
Other interesting examples are almonds and tea.
Almonds were used by Indians.
Tea was used by Mongolians.
However, these kinds of money had problems.
They were often heavy.
They could go bad, too.

Coins
Coins were first invented in the 7th century B.C. in Lydia.
They were made from gold and silver.
People made coins of different sizes and gave them different values.
Coins were good in many ways.
First, they could be carried easily.
Second, they made exact exchanges possible.
Everyone liked the idea, so coins quickly became popular.

Paper Money
The first paper money appeared in China around the 10th century A.D.
Because coins were heavy, people started to keep them at banks.
Then the banks gave people paper slips as receipts.
After a while, people began to use the slips of paper as money.
Europeans heard about the paper money in China around the 13th century,
but the idea did not become popular in the West for a long time.
The first paper money in the West appeared in Sweden only in 1661.

We still use coins and paper money a lot in our everyday lives,
but their role is getting smaller and smaller.
We use credit cards a lot.
We transfer money from account to account.
Some people think that coins and paper money may not be used in the future.
What kind of money will take their place?
We'll just have to wait and see.