I’ll give you mega tips right now. History shows how money is made as a solution to local and international trading. Commerce and financial system evolved and developed to strengthen nations and to secure national treasury against counterfeit. Currently, the market is filled with various denominations representing every countries of the world.

As early as the first civilizations in Mesopotamia, store houses were built as reservoir for a kingdom’s agricultural produce. The keepers of the pre-banking system already kept records of all the deposits. Withdrawals of produce were made and treated as loans complete with interests.

It was not until 600BC when the old banking system has been in place that minted coins began to be used. The first mint was made in Lydia, a place near the city of Sardis in Asia minor which now Turkey. Although this was late to party, the concept was already old. Ancient China was using shells to buy goods three thousand years ahead of Lydia.

This coin of Lydia was minted using an alloy of gold and silver stamped with a lion’s head. Some of their contemporaries were coins minted in Persia, Athens and Corinth made of gold or silver. The face value of this token was placed in the same level to its actual metal value. Essentially, a coin is a handy piece of hard material produced in large number in accordance to a specific standard that vary in every country, and used as legal tender for international exchange.

China also used paper currency in seven hundred AD. Since it can only represent an arbitrary value but the real material worth may be a lot cheaper, it caused a major inflation and economic bankruptcy. In sixteen hundred AD, the idea was revived through bank notes issued for Swedish State Bank.

The first American paper money was the British pounds issued in the 1690. Because it was easily faked, there were many changes to its design and attempts to keep the new currency in circulation. Finally, the printing stopped in 1800 for massive counterfeiting and in effect, devaluation of dollar. It was still the problem in the time of President Lincoln, when he put the dollar back in circulation, that he formed the Secret Service to contain the crime in 1865.

Procedures for making money is different for every country, but all coins are minted following a strict alloy composition and over-all processing requirements. Generally, minting requires metals to be melted in furnace and cooled to be rolled in specific thickness. To keep the material soft enough for shaping and stamping, it is heated and cooled repeatedly during the entire procedure.

For paper currency, the process is different. It includes the making of the special paper using cotton and linen to get the right texture. The familiar specks of red and blue fibers are incorporated and seen all over the paper. Security thread is sandwiched between the two-ply materials in a specific position. Each denomination has different positions of this thread which is seen in certain lighting condition.

The US dollar uses several security features, some of them are the watermark image invisible until held up on a light, UV light sensitive security thread embedded between layers, color-shifting ink that is used on serial numbers and images and some texts, among others. All these technologies were adapted and have improved how money is made centuries earlier.