[sethrin]

It's not clear that commodity money or coinage existed before paper notes. Certainly the story of civilizations moving from barter to money to more complex instruments is false, but also: coins were not used any more than they are today. You might get some change back from a street vendor, but most transactions are cashless. In Anglo-Saxon England, the kings periodically recalled all coins and had them reminted. The coin of the realm wasn't necessarily anything more than a unit of account, something for prices to be denominated in. Various ancient law codes tend to be very specific about how many shekels a goat is worth (depending on sex, age, and condition), so that you can trade it directly.

The origins of modern bank notes probably have more to do with the Knights Templar than goldsmiths.

The point you were trying to make is accurate enough, but the source you're quoting is both lengthy and simplistic past the point of being correct.

[ferdo]

> It's not clear that commodity money or coinage existed before paper notes.

Coins were around for millenia before paper money. The earliest paper money I know of is the bark money written of by Marco Polo [1]. Europeans got their idea for paper money from the Chinese.

[1] http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/marco-polo-on-money