Paper money in the context of "Gold reserve"

Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market.

Traders generally negotiate through a medium of credit or exchange, such as money. Though some economists characterize barter (i.e. trading things without the use of money) as an early form of trade, money was invented before written history began. Consequently, any story of how money first developed is mostly based on conjecture and logical inference. Letters of credit, paper money, and non-physical money have greatly simplified and promoted trade as buying can be separated from selling, or earning. Trade between two traders is called bilateral trade, while trade involving more than two traders is called multilateral trade.

The Monetary Convention of 23 December 1865 was a unified system of coinage that provided a degree of monetary integration among several European countries, initially Belgium, France, Italy and Switzerland, at a time when the circulation of banknotes in these countries remained relatively marginal. In early 1866, it started being referred to in the British press as the Latin Monetary Union, with intent to make clear that the United Kingdom would not join, and has been generally referred to under that name (French: union latine) and the acronym LMU since then. A number of countries minted coins according to the LMU standard even though they did not formally join the LMU.

The LMU has been viewed as a forerunner of late-20th-century European monetary union but cannot be directly compared with it, not least since the LMU did not rely on any common institutions. Unlike the Scandinavian Monetary Union established a few years later, the Latin Monetary Union remained limited to coinage and never extended to paper money. That made the LMU increasingly less relevant, and it was quietly disbanded in 1926.

A banknote or bank note – also called a bill (North American English) or simply a note – is a type of paper money that is made and distributed ("issued") by a bank of issue, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued by commercial banks, which were legally required to redeem the notes for legal tender (usually gold or silver coin) when presented to the chief cashier of the originating bank. These commercial banknotes only traded at face value in the market served by the issuing bank. Commercial banknotes have primarily been replaced by national banknotes issued by central banks or monetary authorities.

By extension, the word "banknote" is sometimes used (including by collectors) to refer more generally to paper money, but in a strict sense notes that have not been issued by banks, e.g. government notes, are not banknotes.

Printing in East Asia originated in China, evolving from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tablets, used during the sixth century. A type of printing called mechanical woodblock printing on paper started in China during the 7th century in the Tang dynasty. The practice of woodblock printing soon spread throughout East Asia. As recorded in 1088 by Shen Kuo in his Dream Pool Essays, the Chinese artisan Bi Sheng invented an early form of movable type using clay and wood pieces arranged and organized for written Chinese characters. The earliest printed paper money with movable metal type to print the identifying code of the money was made in 1161 during the Song dynasty. In 1193, a book documented instructions on how to use the copper movable type. The use of metal movable type spread to Korea by the 13th century during the Goryeo period, with the world's oldest surviving printed book using moveable metal type being from 1377 in Korea.

From the 17th century to the 19th century in Japan, woodblock prints called ukiyo-e were mass-produced, which influenced European Japonisme and the Impressionists. The printing press became known in East Asia by the 16th century but was not adopted. Centuries later, mechanical printing presses combining some European influences were adopted, but then was replaced with newer laser printing systems designed in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Printing emerged as early as the 4th millennium BCE in the form of cylinder seals used by the Proto-Elamite and Sumerian civilizations to certify documents written on clay tablets. Other early forms include block seals, hammered coinage, pottery imprints, and cloth printing. Initially a method of printing patterns on cloth such as silk, woodblock printing for texts on paper originated in Tang China by the 7th century, to the spread of book production and woodblock printing in other parts of Asia such as Korea and Japan. The Chinese Buddhist Diamond Sutra, printed by woodblock on 11 May 868, is the earliest known printed book with a precise publishing date. Movable type was invented in China during the 11th century by the Song dynasty artisan Bi Sheng, but it received limited use compared to woodblock printing. However, the use of copper movable types was documented in a Song-era book from 1193, and the earliest printed paper money using movable metal type to print the identifying codes were made in 1161. The technology also spread outside China, with the oldest extant printed book using metal movable type being the Jikji, printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo era.

Woodblock printing was also used in Europe until the mid-15th century. Late medieval German inventor Johannes Gutenberg created the first printing press based on previously known mechanical presses and a process for mass-producing metal type. By the end of the 15th century, his invention and widescale circulation of the Gutenberg Bible became responsible for a burgeoning economical book publishing industry spreading globally across Renaissance Europe and eventually among the colonial publishers and printers that emerged in the British American colonies. This industry enabled the communication of ideas and the sharing of knowledge on an unprecedented scale, leading to the global spread of the printing press during the early modern period. Alongside the development of text printing, new and lower-cost methods of image reproduction were developed, including lithography, screen printing and photocopying.

A government note is a form of paper money which is directly issued by a government, as opposed to banknotes which (in a strict sense) are issued by a bank which is known for that reason as a bank of issue. Government notes predate banknotes in history, but are mostly a concept of the past. In the 21st century so far, nearly all paper money has taken the form of banknotes issued by a national (or in some cases such as the euro, supranational) central bank.

A cash seal (simplified Chinese: 宝钞印; traditional Chinese: 寳鈔印; pinyin: Baochao Yin; "Baochao" means "valuable money", "Yin" means "seal") is a type of seal used as an anti-counterfeiting measure on paper money. The cash seal first appeared during the Song dynasty in China.

The short name is Chao Yin (simplified Chinese: 钞印; traditional Chinese: 鈔印), and the full name is Seal of Baochao (simplified Chinese: 宝钞之印; traditional Chinese: 寳鈔之印; pinyin: Baochao Zhiyin), or Baochao Yinjian (simplified Chinese: 宝钞印鉴; traditional Chinese: 寳鈔印鑑). The name can also be simply translated as "money seal" or "note seal".