Portal:Money

The Money Portal

Euro coins and banknotes

Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value and sometimes, a standard of deferred payment.

Money was historically an emergent market phenomenon that possessed intrinsic value as a commodity; nearly all contemporary money systems are based on unbacked fiat money without use value. Its value is consequently derived by social convention, having been declared by a government or regulatory entity to be legal tender; that is, it must be accepted as a form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for "all debts, public and private", in the case of the United States dollar.

The money supply of a country comprises all currency in circulation (banknotes and coins currently issued) and, depending on the definition used, one or more types of bank money (the balances held in checking accounts, savings accounts, and other types of bank accounts). Bank money, whose value exists on the books of financial institutions and can be converted into physical notes or used for cashless payment, forms by far the largest part of broad money in developed countries. (Full article...)

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A £5 note (white fiver) forged by Sachsenhausen concentration camp prisoners

Operation Bernhard was an exercise by Nazi Germany to forge British bank notes. The initial plan was to drop the notes over Britain to bring about a collapse of the British economy during the Second World War. The first phase was run from early 1940 by the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) under the title Unternehmen Andreas (Operation Andreas). The unit successfully duplicated the rag paper used by the British, produced near-identical engraving blocks and deduced the algorithm used to create the alpha-numeric serial code on each note. The unit closed in early 1942 after its head, Alfred Naujocks, fell out of favour with his superior officer, Reinhard Heydrich.

The operation was revived later in the year; the aim was changed to forging money to finance German intelligence operations. Instead of a specialist unit within the SD, prisoners from Nazi concentration camps were selected and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp to work under SS Major Bernhard Krüger. The unit produced British notes until mid-1945; estimates vary of the number and value of notes printed, from £132.6 million up to £300 million. By the time the unit ceased production, they had perfected the artwork for US dollars, although the paper and serial numbers were still being analysed. The counterfeit money was laundered in exchange for money and other assets. Counterfeit notes from the operation were used to pay the Turkish agent Elyesa Bazna—code named Cicero—for his work in obtaining British secrets from the British ambassador in Ankara, and £100,000 from Operation Bernhard was used to obtain information that helped to free the Italian leader Benito Mussolini in the Gran Sasso raid in September 1943. (Full article...)

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The one-hundred-euro note (€100) is one of the higher value euro banknotes and has been used since the introduction of the euro (in its cash form) in 2002.

The note is the official currency of 21 of the 27 member states of the European Union, which are part of the Eurozone. The 21 Eurozone members are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. (Full article...)

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... that Martha Washington's portrait on the 1896 US one-dollar silver certificate is the most recent time that a woman has been featured on US paper money?
... that a nuclear reactor was nearly built at the New York Hall of Science, but the money for the institution instead went to Yankee Stadium?
... that memoirist Guy Trebay recalled that the Tenth Floor, a New York City nightclub, attracted "slick and professional gay men who obviously had money"?
... that barley was once used as a form of money?
... that Chen Diexian's 1913 autobiographical novel The Money Demon mainly details his own love affairs?
... that modernist architect Paul Rudolph was said to have run out of money three times while designing the Modulightor Building?
... that a group called the Wrinkled Wheels cycled from Land's End to John o' Groats to raise money for St Helena Hospice?
... that the general manager of a Cleveland TV station believed its owner to be "just tired of losing money"?

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The following are images from various currency-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Silver, ½ Karshapana coin, “Babyal Hoard” type, of the Kuru Janapada (450–315 BC) (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 2A 640 BC one-third stater electrum coin from Lydia. According to Herodotus, the Lydians were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver coins. It is thought by modern scholars that these first stamped coins were minted around 650 to 600 BC. (from Money)
Image 3Tibetan "gaden" Tangka, undated (ca. AD 1840), obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 4US dollar banknotes (from Money)
Image 5Tenga of Muhammad Khudayar Khan, struck at the Kokand mint, dated 1862–1863 (from Kokand tenga)
Image 6Tibetan undated silver tangka (2nd half of 18th century) with eight times the syllable "dza" in vartula script, reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 7Paper money from different countries (from Money)
Image 8"Bent bar" of the Gandhara Janapda unearthed with Achaemenid and Greek coins, Gandhara, c.350 BC. (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 9A person counts a bundle of different Swedish banknotes. (from Money)
Image 10Printing paper money at a printing press in Perm (from Money)
Image 11Gold coins are an example of legal tender that are traded for their intrinsic value, rather than their face value. (from Money)
Image 12Undated Kelzang tangka (1910), obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 13Sino Tibetan silver tangka, dated 58th year of Qian Long era, reverse. Weight 5.57 g. Diameter: 30 mm (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 14Euro banknotes and coins (from Money)
Image 15Tibetan kong par tangka, dated 13-45 (= AD 1791), obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 16Egyptian gold stater of Nectanebo II: reverse with hieroglyphs nfr-nb, minted in Egypt around 360 BC. (from Money)
Image 17President J. K. Paasikivi illustrated in a former Finnish 10 mark banknote from 1980 (from Money)
Image 18Tibetan silver tangka with Ranjana (Lantsa) script, dated 15-28 (= AD 1894), obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 19A hoard of mostly Mauryan punch-marked coins (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 20Tibetan undated silver tangka, struck in 1953/54, obverse. (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 21Tibetan kong par tangka, dated 13-45 (= AD 1791), reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 22Undated Kelzang tangka (1910), reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 23Song Dynasty Jiaozi, the world's earliest paper money (from Money)
Image 24Huizi currency, issued in 1160 (from Money)
Image 25Sino Tibetan silver tangka, dated 58th year of Qian Long era, obverse. Weight 5.57 g. Diameter: 30 mm (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 26Money Base, M1 and M2 in the U.S. from 1981 to 2012 (from Money)
Image 27Tibetan undated silver tangka (2nd half of 18th century) with eight times the syllable "dza" in vartula script, obverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 28Banknotes of different currencies with a face value of 5000 (from Money)
Image 29"Babyal Hoard" type, of the Kuru Janapada (350–315 BCE) (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 30A 1914 British gold sovereign (from Money)
Image 31Café in Delft accepting Bitcoin (from Money)
Image 32A check, used as a means of converting funds in a demand deposit to cash (from Money)
Image 33Tibetan "gaden" Tangka, undated (ca. AD 1840), reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 34Tibetan undated silver tangka, struck in 1953/54, reverse. (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 35Punch-marked coins discovered from Chandraketugarh. (from Punch-marked coins)
Image 36Tibetan silver tangka with Ranjana (Lantsa) script, dated 15-28 (= AD 1894), reverse (from Tibetan tangka)
Image 37Ancient Jewish coin, engraved menorah, from the Hasmoneon kingdom 37-40 BCE (from Money)