# Large financial transactions in the past **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 6, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386 "2016-04-06T21:00:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/21 "2016-04-08T18:42:03Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > There’s not much of a difference between a letter of credit and a banknote, when it comes down to it. The Roman Empire issued all kinds of metal coins over its lengthy existence, but common banknotes really require printing presses and cheap sources of paper. A History of the World in 100 Objects includes a [Chinese banknote](http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/F3oFoFDuTx-rzhCkCL9_BA) from the 14th century. They had paper money for a while, but it lead to hyperinflation and was discontinued. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/22 "2016-04-08T19:23:51Z")
Based on what I read in Colleen McCullough’s [Master of Rome](http://www.amazon.com/First-Man-Rome-Masters/dp/0061582417/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460143400&sr=8-1&keywords=masters+of+rome+series) series, they used bank drafts for large sums. IE, Gaius Marius, agreeing to fund Julius Caesar grandfather’s sons up the political ladder in exchange for marrying Julia, brought a bank draft to JC Grandpa. While there was no routing number, but I’m sure Gaius Marius stamped his seal or what have you on the note to transfer X talents from his account to JC Grandpa’s account. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/23 "2016-04-08T21:08:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The army was paid more often than every 25 years. The soldiers didn’t get to return home everytime they were paid. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/24 "2016-04-09T03:43:55Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > That kind of thing did happen, as did nipping bits off coins. One of the reasons to mark the sides of coins was to make the nipping more difficult than if they were only stamped on the faces. Something that has always bugged me slightly is how ancient coins often look, well, kind of crap. A bit weird and uneven, like [this](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/09/23/article-0-219734EA00000578-275_634x286.jpg), [this](http://akropoliscoins.com/JuliusCaesarVenus.jpg)or [this](http://www.romanemperors.com/images/julius-caesar/julius-caesar-elephant-coin.jpg). Yeah, you’d think it would be easy to get away with nipping bits off those. I’ve never actually examined one up close, so maybe that gives a different impression, but it seems odd that they couldn’t have been made nicer and more, you know, circular. I dunno. And in fairness, they don’t all look that bad. Debasement of the currency was certainly a thing at times, yes. [Watch the antoninianus get diluted](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_currency#/media/File:Decline_of_the_antoninianus.jpg) during the Third Century Crisis. Granted, that’s an extreme example, but emperors were known for getting up to shenanigans with the purity of their coins. Which is related to the problem of inflation, which became a huge issue, and something that the Romans didn’t seem to understand properly or get a handle on. (Not that I blame them, I don’t understand how it works either. Economics is basically black magic to me. I guess that’s for a different thread, though. ;)) ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/25 "2016-04-09T04:33:26Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Something that has always bugged me slightly is how ancient coins often look, well, kind of crap. A bit weird and uneven, like [this](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/09/23/article-0-219734EA00000578-275_634x286.jpg), [this](http://akropoliscoins.com/JuliusCaesarVenus.jpg)or [this](http://www.romanemperors.com/images/julius-caesar/julius-caesar-elephant-coin.jpg). Remember that the ones we’re seeing now are always at least a couple of thousand years old, and mostly those that were ‘stored’ in bad situations (buried somewhere & forgotten, lost undersea when a ship sunk, buried when a volcano erupted, etc.). The coins that were in actual use by people were mostly eventually melted down and re-minted into coins for the new government. We’re only seeing the junky ones still as ancient coins. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/26 "2016-04-09T05:40:42Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Remember that the ones we’re seeing now are always at least a couple of thousand years old, and mostly those that were ‘stored’ in bad situations (buried somewhere & forgotten, lost undersea when a ship sunk, buried when a volcano erupted, etc.). The coins that were in actual use by people were mostly eventually melted down and re-minted into coins for the new government. We’re only seeing the junky ones still as ancient coins. Well, I don’t know about that. No one knew in advance that their ship would sink, that the volcano would erupt, or that a German army would ambush them and leave their pocket money scattered in a forest somewhere. In all those cases, the coins involved would have been an average sample of coins in use, not especially “junky” ones. Even for hoards, I don’t see any particular reason why bad looking coins would be buried more than other coins. Would people really bother picking out the nicer ones, to use those at the local store? I don’t see why. And being a couple of millennia old doesn’t matter for imperfections, or intentional design choices, or whatever is going on, that clearly has to do with the production process. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/27 "2016-04-09T06:35:28Z")
IANAMinter, but IIRC - the method of making coins was to take a blob of metal and stamp it with the impression of the official coinage. Presumably those blobs were portioned exactly, most likely by pouring a measured amount. First, to get perfect round coins you would have to either have an concave obverse stamp and let the raised edges contain it, or you would need to roll a sheet of precious metal to a precise thickness and then stamp it with a tool to cut perfect round blanks. Also note that in the days before steam engines for pumping out coal mines, much of the fuel for such efforts had to be hand carried (and likely, hand cut trees). Your mint would be in a large metropolitan center with a large garrison, not the isolated countryside (think large quantity of precious metal) so fuel is already in short supply. The metalwork to make chopping tools or stamps would be aa lot of effort. but then again, unlike today, the value is not the formed coin but the metal content. “Pieces of Eight” famously were easily chopped into quarters - two bits - or one bit to make change; small change was often a chunk cut out of a coin, so money changers also had to be assayers. but to answer the OP’s question, occasionally large sums actually had to be transported, presumably with sufficient armed escort. Or by boat- we still find the occasional treasure ship today, and a ship would carry the means to pay the sailors at the next port. The travelling armies also had a paymaster, who might travel with a huge chest or two loaded with the money to pay soldiers; but it was also convenient to let them make their own pay by sacking the next town and helping themselves to what they found. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/28 "2016-04-09T06:51:29Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Something that has always bugged me slightly is how ancient coins often look, well, kind of crap. In the West. The Chinese [got it right](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Chinese_coinage#Ban_Liang_coins) pretty early on. The difference being that he Chinese used cast coins, not struck ones. The West only gets to pass that with the invention of milling in the 1550s. > [@](#): > > Yeah, you’d think it would be easy to get away with nipping bits off those. I’ve never actually examined one up close, so maybe that gives a different impression, but it seems odd that they couldn’t have been made nicer and more, you know, circular. I dunno. And in fairness, they don’t all look that bad. This is why major transactions would involve weighing of coin, not just coin counting. You might have to toss in an extra _sou_ or two, if your _sous_ are underweight. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/29 "2016-04-09T07:32:45Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Well, I don’t know about that. No one knew in advance that their ship would sink, that the volcano would erupt, or that a German army would ambush them and leave their pocket money scattered in a forest somewhere. In all those cases, the coins involved would have been an average sample of coins in use, not especially “junky” ones. Even for hoards, I don’t see any particular reason why bad looking coins would be buried more than other coins. Would people really bother picking out the nicer ones, to use those at the local store? I don’t see why. And being a couple of millennia old doesn’t matter for imperfections, or intentional design choices, or whatever is going on, that clearly has to do with the production process. I guess I didn’t explain this well. It isn’t that they were junky looking ones back then, it’s that they have deteriorated during a couple thousand years of being underwater or buried in a field or under lava. They were probably just as nice as any other coins were back then. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2016, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386/30 "2016-04-09T08:04:57Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > I guess I didn’t explain this well. > > It isn’t that they were junky looking ones back then, it’s that they have deteriorated during a couple thousand years of being underwater or buried in a field or under lava. They were probably just as nice as any other coins were back then. I don’t mean deterioration, I do understand that part. Maybe I’m the one who didn’t explain it well. I’m talking about, you know, [this](http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/ancient_luxury/images/gm_346590EX1x1024.jpg) [look](http://mtltimes.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/12-caesars-in-gold.jpg). The “chunkiness”, and irregular shapes. Lack of perfect circularity. I think \*\*md2000 \*\*cleared it up, certainly to my satisfaction. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/large-financial-transactions-in-the-past/751386.md?page=1)