I have a bunch of letters from my family dating back to the civil war. It’s fascinating how many IOUs there are in there for like a bushel of apples, or a scrap of leather, or whatever they traded to their neighbors. Like you said, scraps of paper with IOU were literally used like currency, but the real currency was people’s reputation to make good on their debts, the paper was just to track it.
I have a bunch of letters from my family dating back to the civil war. It’s fascinating how many IOUs there are in there for like a bushel of apples, or a scrap of leather, or whatever they traded to their neighbors. Like you said, scraps of paper with IOU were literally used like currency, but the real currency was people’s reputation to make good on their debts, the paper was just to track it.