There are millions of currency notes of different sizes, colours and feel all across the world and, in spite of their differences, are easily recognisable as currency. And then there are places where what passes for currency is most unexpected...
On the island of Yap in the Solomon Islands, you'll find the world's largest and strangest form of currency: the rai stone. Forget pocket change: these limestone disks with the hole in the centre can run 12 feet in diameter and weight up to eight tonnes.
Taking In God We Trust one step further, the island nation of Palau issued a silver dollar coin in 2007 with the image of the Virgin Mary and a tiny vial containing holy water from the Grotto at Lourdes, France. The following year, it issued a second series to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Apparitions of the Virgin Mary at the Grotto.
In medieval Russia, squirrel pelts were a common currency of exchange. So common, in fact, that snouts, claws and ears were also used, presumably as change.
Zaire, known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, once upon a time didn't have money to burn. When the totalitarian regime of Joseph Mobutu was overthrown in 1997, the new government faced a cash crunch until it could design/print new currency. It's thrifty solution? It took large stacks of 20,000 zaire notes & simply punched out Mobutu's image.
Worried about inflation? You'd have to go some to beat Hungary circa 1946, which issued the world record denomination, the 100 Million Billion Pengo. That's right -- 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 Pengos, woth about 20 cents US then.
We normally think of money as fully fungible, meaning interchangeable for like value of all goods and services. But this is by no means universal. In some cultures, certain currencies can only purchase certain things, such as a bride or raw land. This Vietnamese bill was one such example. Looking like stamps, you could tear one off for a shirt or a pair of pants, it being denominated in clothing.
Wooden bills may have been rough on the wallet, but they were one of the ingenious ways that Germans devised to rebuild their economy following World War I. When the war settlement left the German economy in shambles, local townships took to printing notgeld or emergency money on everything from wood, aluminium foil to silk, playing cards, as a form of payment until the Reichsbank recovered.
Salt is one of the world's oldest forms of payment. In fact, the word salary derives from the Latin salarium, which was the money paid to Roman soldiers to buy salt. It was the main form of currency in the Sahara Desert during the Middle Ages, and was used extensively throughout East Africa. It's not the only edible currency. Cheese, cacao beans were others.