Grade 3 Social Studies Online What is Bartering? Grade 3 Social Studies Online

Blue Print Skill Differentiate between money and barter economies.

No Money? It's hard to imagine our world without money, isn't it? A long time ago there were no coins. There was no such thing as money. Before money was invented people had to get their food, clothing and other needs by trading things.

A special kind of trading… There is a special name for this kind of trading. The name is barter. Bartering is the exchange of goods and services without the use of money.

Why do people barter? People traded some of the things they didn't need for things they wanted or needed. Even then people had different jobs and skills. The good hunter might trade 10 rabbits to the carpenter for the carpenter's promise to fix his roof.

What was traded? All sorts of things could be used as money if people agreed on their value and accepted them in trade. In some places you could always make a trade if you had a cow.

Salt was valuable. Salt was hard to find and very valuable to people. Everybody wanted salt to flavor and preserve their food. So salt was used for money. In ancient Rome the soldiers were paid with salt.

There are problems with bartering. What happened when you had something to trade but nobody wanted it? What happened when the traders couldn't agree on what was a fair trade?

Do you have what someone wants? The main disadvantage of barter is that it requires a double coincidence of wants. Both people have to have what the other one wants and be willing to swap with each other. This caused people to develop a standard for value of items. One example was called wampum.

What is wampum? Wampum were beads usually made from the Northern Quahog, a hard-shell clam.

More wampum… Native Americans used a form of bartering using wampum. In the 1620’s settlers in New York use wampum for coinage and trade with local Native American tribes.

Metal as Money Because beads broke and goods often spoiled, people began using metal for money. They used copper, iron, bronze, gold and silver. Metal wouldn't get sick, spoil, or break.

Metal for money Metal could be carried around much easier than a cow or sacks of grain! In the beginning people used lumps of metal, chunks of metal, and metal in all shapes and sizes. The heavier the piece of metal was, the more you could buy with it.

Weighing metal… When one man gave another man a piece of metal, the other man weighed it with a scale. This was done every time a person gave another person a chunk of metal to make sure that nobody cheated anybody else. Weighing metals took time and wasn't very convenient for anyone.

Money, money, money!!! People decided to weigh a piece of metal once and make a mark on it that told how much it weighed. Then the metal would not have to be weighed every time it was traded. Now everyone could look at the piece of metal and see how much it was worth. Pieces of metal that were weighed and marked this way were the first coins.

Resources Econopolis Hawaiian Barter Wampum Works Bartering for Goods