Countries Where I Landed: CURRENCY

I can conclude that of all the blessings I received, God is always with me, for he gives me great gift I am not wanting and I never dreamed. And because of his greatness he has given me the chance to visit some countries abroad and I am Thankful to Him for giving me such great opportunity.

GOD IS GREAT!!!

The photos of currencies that you can see below are my own collections in the countries were I visited since year 2009 to year 2014.

Sample Currency

As Wikipedia describes:

A currency (from Middle English: curraunt, "in circulation", from Latin: currens, -entis) in the most specific use of the word refers tomoney in any form when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins.^[1][2] A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation.^[3] Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are examples of currency. These various currencies are stores of value, and are traded between nations in foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies.^[4]Currencies in this sense are defined by governments, and each type has limited boundaries of acceptance.

Coinage

These factors led to the metal itself being the store of value: first silver, then both silver and gold, and at one point also bronze. Now we have copper coins and other non-precious metals as coins. Metals were mined, weighed, and stamped into coins. This was to assure the individual taking the coin that he was getting a certain known weight of precious metal. Coins could be counterfeited, but they also created a new unit of account, which helped lead to banking. Archimedes' principle provided the next link: coins could now be easily tested for their fine weight of metal, and thus the value of a coin could be determined, even if it had been shaved, debased or otherwise tampered with (seeNumismatics).

Most major economies using coinage had three tiers of coins: copper, silver and gold. Gold coins were used for large purchases, payment of the military and backing of state activities. Silver coins were used for midsized transactions, and as a unit of account for taxes, dues, contracts and fealty, while copper coins were used for everyday transactions. This system had been used in ancient India since the time of the Mahajanapadas. In Europe, this system worked through the medieval period because there was virtually no new gold, silver or copper introduced through mining or conquest.^{[citation needed]} Thus the overall ratios of the three coinages remained roughly equivalent.

Paper money

In premodern China, the need for credit and for a medium of exchange that was less physically cumbersome than large numbers of copper coins led to the introduction of paper money, i.e. banknotes. Their introduction was a gradual process which lasted from the late Tang dynasty (618–907) into the Song dynasty (960–1279). It began as a means for merchants to exchange heavy coinage for receipts of deposit issued as promissory notes by wholesalers' shops. These notes that were valid for temporary use in a small regional territory. In the 10th century, the Song dynasty government began to circulate these notes amongst the traders in its monopolized salt industry. The Song government granted several shops the right to issue banknotes, and in the early 12th century the government finally took over these shops to produce state-issued currency. Yet the banknotes issued were still only locally and temporarily valid: it was not until the mid 13th century that a standard and uniform government issue of paper money became an acceptable nationwide currency. The already widespread methods of woodblock printing and then Pi Sheng's movable type printing by the 11th century were the impetus for the mass production of paper money in premodern China.

In Europe, paper money was first introduced on a regular basis in Sweden in 1661 (although Washington Irving records an earlier emergency use of it, by the Spanish in a siege during the Conquest of Granada). Sweden was rich in copper, thus, because of copper's low value, extraordinarily big coins (often weighing several kilograms) had to be made.At around the same time in the medieval Islamic world, a vigorous monetary economy was created during the 7th–12th centuries on the basis of the expanding levels of circulation of a stable high-value currency (the dinar). Innovations introduced by Muslim economists, traders and merchants include the earliest uses of credit,^[5] cheques, promissory notes,^[6] savings accounts, transactional accounts,loaning, trusts, exchange rates, the transfer of credit and debt,^[7] and banking institutions for loans and deposits.^[7]

The advantages of paper currency were numerous: it reduced the need to transport gold and silver, which was risky; it facilitated loans of gold or silver at interest, since the underlying specie (gold or silver) never left the possession of the lender until someone else redeemed the note; and it allowed a division of currency into credit and specie backed forms. It enabled the sale of stock in joint stock companies, and the redemption of those shares in paper.