The use of hard money dates from at least 2000 BC. There was no large scale standardization of money or coinage until the 7th century BC. The city state of Lydia is given credit for issuing the first coins. They were made of electrum, a mixture of gold and silver.
Edmund Burke's prescience in 1790 in saying that the french revolution would lead to terror was probably thanks to his acute disgust at the revolutionaries' monetary policy. They created the assignat in december 1789, a currency he scorned as depreciated paper which is stamped with the indelible mark of sacrilege, for it was supposedly based on the value of lands seized from the church.
Around 118 BC leather was used first in China in the form of one-foot-square pieces of white deerskin with colorful borders. This could be considered the first documented type of banknote, the first paper banknotes appeared in China. In China experienced over 500 years of early paper money, spanning from the ninth through the fifteenth century. This period, paper notes grew in production to the point that their value rapidly depreciated and inflation soared.
