The token of value, say paper, which plays the part of coin, is the token of a quantity of gold expressed in its currency name, i. e., it is a gold token. Just as a certain quantity of gold does not in itself express a value ratio, so is that true of the token which takes its place. In so far as a certain quantity of gold, as embodied labor-time, has a value of a certain magnitude, the gold token represents value. But the magnitude of the value which it represents depends all the time on the value of the quantity of gold for which it stands. As regards commodities the token of value expresses _the reality of their price_, it is _signum pretii_ and sign of their value only because their value is expressed in their price. In the process C―M―C, in so far as it represents the dynamic unity or direct alternation of the two metamorphoses―and that is the aspect it assumes in the sphere of circulation in which the token of value discharges its function―the exchange value of commodities acquires in price only an ideal expression and in money only an imaginary symbolic existence. Exchange value thus acquires _only_ an imaginary though material expression, but it has no real existence except in the commodities themselves, in so far as a certain quantity of labor-time is embodied in them. It _appears_, therefore, that the token of value represents _directly_ the value of commodities, by figuring not as a token of gold but as a token of the value which exists in the commodity alone and is only expressed in price. But it is a false appearance. The token of value is directly only _a token of price_, i. e., a _token of gold_, and only indirectly a token of value of a commodity. Unlike Peter Shlemihl, gold has not sold its shadow, but buys with its shadow. The token of value operates only in so far as it represents the price of one commodity as against that of another within the sphere of circulation, or in so far as it _represents gold_ to every owner of commodities. A certain comparatively worthless object such as a piece of leather, a slip of paper, etc., becomes by force of custom a token of money material, but maintains its existence in that capacity only so long as its character as a symbol of money is guaranteed by the general acquiescence of the owners of commodities, i. e., so long as it enjoys a legally established conventional existence and compulsory circulation. Paper money issued by the state and circulating as legal tender is the perfected form of the token of value, and the only form of paper money, which has its immediate origin in metallic circulation or even in the simple circulation of commodities. _Credit money_ belongs to a higher sphere of the social process of production and is governed by entirely different laws. Symbolic paper money does not in fact, differ in the least from subsidiary metal coin, except that it reaches wider spheres of circulation. We have seen that the mere technical development of the