Weird and Amazing Currencies Of The World

The common impression is that currencies come only in the form of the paper money in your wallet or coins in your pocket. Or that gold, copper or silver once functioned as primitive form of currencies.

From today's modern society, that's true.

But from history's perspective, we realize currencies took in many forms...including the most bizarre ones.

This from CNBC's The Weirdest Currencies of the World

Just a few examples...

Edible Money!

``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. Typically, one would lick a salt block to make sure it was real and break off pieces to make change. Doty's block, seen here, is 1,500 years old.

``Other incredible, edible currencies include "reng," a yarn-ball of tumeric spice wrapped in coconut fibers that is used for trade in the Solomon Islands; cacao (or chocolate beans), widely used throughout Mexico and Central America; and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, so highly regarded that it was used both as currency and bank collateral in Italy.

``One particularly inedible currency: the poisonous money seeds of Burma. Which if nothing else proves that money does indeed grow on trees — or at least bushes."

Deposed president for a currency's design!

``The African nation of Zaire, known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, doesn't have money to burn. So when the totalitarian regime of Joseph Mobutu was overthrown in 1997, the new government found itself in a cash crunch until it could design and print new currency. It's thrifty solution? It took large stacks of 20,000-zaire notes and simply punched out Mobutu's image."

Read more of the amazing but weird currencies and their stories here.