Bottle caps –
Corporate advertising at its finest as bottle caps from local breweries are used as currency in parts of Cameroon. The country is engulfed in a fierce promotional battle between competing breweries.
Urine –
Sounds weird, but even today, piss is used as currency in prisons. When a prisoner gets called for a random drug test that requires them to pee in a cup, if the sample is not clean they can get into big trouble. Now it’s easier to imagine clean urine coming in handy in certain situations.
Laundry detergents –
Tide is a very common, easy-to-sell product, which is why criminals steal it from stores in order to exchange the detergent for drugs. For instance, a 150-oz bottle is worth $10 of crack or weed on the black market. Tide pods are also a premium.
Arrowheads –
This type of ancient currency originates from the northern part of the Black Sea and is known for being the first form of money in the region. It’s the bronze consistency that gave the arrowheads such value as well as their obvious ability to be used as a weapon. These coins were cast in many shapes, and they eventually took on the more intricate form of dolphins and fish.
Tea bricks –
From the 9th to 20th centuries, tea bricks were widely used as a form of currency in countries like China, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, and some parts of Russia. Bricks came in all shapes and sizes with the quality varying from brick to brick. This is what made other more valuable than others.
Shells –
Probably the best-looking currency of the bunch, shell money was once commonly used in almost every continent on the planet. Archaeologists found evidence that the shells were used as a means of payment from at least 1200 BC on. Oddly enough, these shells are still used today in some remote parts of the world.
Lobi snakes –
The Lobi people are an ethnic group originated from Ghana who considered snakes to be an important part of their culture. Living lives of farmers, the Lobis used to spend a lot of time in the fields where they encountered plenty of snakes. The iron snakes that they forged were originally meant to guard them and eventually were used as a means of currency between the locals.
Rai stones –
The most massive form of currency in history has to be the Rai stones. They were used as currency on the island of Yap from around 500 AD. Each Rai stone represented its own history which determined its value. The more difficult it was to create and transport a stone, the greater its value was.
Katanga Cross –
Katanga Crosses were made in various sizes, with the average Cross about 20 cm in diameter and weighing about 1 kg. The copper figures were mostly traded in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo from the 19th century to the 20th.
Dolphin teeth –
There are places across the Solomon Islands (near Australia) where dolphins’ teeth are used as currency in our modern world. According to the published journal Royal Society Open Science, the overall recorded number of dolphins killed for their teeth from 1976-2013 was more than 15,400.
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese –
The love for cheese in Italy is astronomical. So much in fact that one of the Italian banks, Credito Emiliano, accepts parmesan cheese as a form of payment. Since 1953, the regional bank has accepted a curious collateral for small business loans: giant wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese.
