W. C a r e w H a z l i t t Coinage of the European Continent

44 The Coins of Europe
Low Countries seem to have nothing anterior to 1475 m
any metal or form. But after that period the principle was
carried out very generally on the Continent. Denmark resorted
to the practice in 1496, Brittany in 1498, Brandenburgh
in 1500, Saluzzo in 1503, Savoy in 1508, Scotland in
1539, England in 1551. But the observance was by no
means universal or invariable even among those nations
which introduced it. The value to posterity was not the
motive, although at present
it is the consideration which
recommends it to us.
XIV
Scarcely any substance can be mentioned of which in some
region or at some period coins have not been struck. Gold,
electrum, platinum, silver, tin, iron, lead, copper, glass, porcelain,
leather, paper, salt, not to mention shells and beads ;
all these have constituted the material whence men have
supplied themselves with the means of exchange, when some
or feasible.
process outside mere barter became requisite
Among all such devices the application of the six last-named
products to numismatic purposes may be considered more
especially remarkable, since we somehow associate a currency
with the various metals, from a natural preference for a token
at once portable and negotiable.
Within the confines of Europe itself, leather, paper, and
salt have been employed as representatives of values in early
times. The Russians, after the abandonment of whole skins,
used irregular strips and then circular blanks of leather,
stamped with some type at a remote date ;
and specimens
are said to survive. At the siege of Leyden in 1574 pieces
of 5, 10, and 20 sols, formed of the leaves of missals, were
accepted in payment. The ancient inhabitants of Venetia,
like those of Hindoostan in more recent days, recognised
impressed cakes of salt as an equivalent for a coinage, and
the Abyssinians employ for the same purpose rock-salt
in bar.