Currency

Currency in Magicians' End has traditionally been based on the elements of copper, silver and gold and their alloys.
The earliest known coins belong to the age of the Painted Peoples and were made from copper mined in the Eroveth Mountains of Myruthea. These have been dated to somewhere around 11960 BPC and many examples have been found in the ruins of Pavol-Rag-Rag.
It seems likely that there were earlier and less sophisticated forms of currency half way between barter and coinage, because the relatively advanced settlements built by the Painted Peoples would have required an advanced medium of economic exchange, but modern scholars are confined to speculation on these matters.
As the New Kingdoms grew after the Settlement of Zaranon, each one minted their own distinctive coins, making it a defining feature of their civilisations. Of these, the best known today are the so called "shell coins" of the Kingdom of Myruth, shiny copper pieces stamped with complex designs influenced by the patterns of a variety of different shells, which represented different values.
Silver only became common in the later half of the age of the New Kingdoms, initially used by the Trinity Moon Triple Enfolding who found the ore in the central mountains of Tinturbean. The Kingdom of Snowborne also used silver coinage, alloyed with copper. The silver came from mines far to the south in the Triquetra Hills. The cities of Punjuki, lacking a ready source of the metal, continued to use copper at this period. Rare example of silver coins from this era occasionally turn up in the north of Tinturbean and Myruthea where they were long buried under ice.
After the Sundering, there were no particularly interesting developments during the Long Thaw, until the time of the Twelve Wise Ones. This was an important age for the creation of standards for trading between the city states of eastern Myruthea and it gave rise to a currency now called simply "Twelves". Mages became more adept at assaying and at detecting forgeries, with a whole commercial culture that depended on the security of "Twelves".
The rise of the Old Pale Empire introduced the first global currency to the world and it was only then that gold became an element in the production of the most valuable coinage. A complete set of "Old Imperials" is essential in the collection of any serious numismatist.
After the Planar Conformation, there was a period of four hundred years when the nascent shattered cultures that followed the collapse of the Old Pale Empire continued to use its coins, and new currencies only began to be minted again by the Flame Kingdoms.
It was not until the time of the Four Aerial Courts that there were the first experiments with currencies which were decoupled from metals. "Aerial Currency" relied instead on smelted hardened glass tokens like large beads, imbued with arcane signatures of authenticity that could be easily validated by cheaply trained mages but were difficult to forge. This technique became ever more sophisticated during the age of the Moderators' Council and was further refined even in the more dangerous and less co-operative years of the Time of Terrors.
There was, however, a reversion to older and simpler physical currencies after the collapse of the Second Popular Ascendancy during the Age of Shadows and this persisted into the Limit Protectorate and the Loyalist Thaumatic Army Council.
Arcane currencies only became popular again after the end of the Third Popular Ascendancy in the Jewelled Queendoms, as late as the middle of the sixth millenium APC. They have gone from strength to strength in subsequent years and are now used by all three of the current major powers, the Trans-Oceanic Empire, the Alchemical Alliance and the Congress of Concerned Citizens, although each one operates its own fiscal system and distinct currency.