7. #Money defined and reviewed#. Money may be defined as a material means of payment and medium of trade, generally accepted as the price-good and passing from hand to hand. The definition contains several ideas. The words "generally accepted" imply that money has a peculiar social character, is not an ordinary good. As a price-good, money itself must be a thing having value, otherwise it could not be accepted. Trade means the taking and giving of things of value. Money is, therefore, not merely an order for goods, as a card or paper requesting payment; it is itself a thing of value (tho this value may be due partly or solely to its possessing the money function). Such things as a telegram when transferring an order for the payment of money, as the spoken word, and as a mere promise to pay, are not money. Even checks and drafts are merely substitutes for money. Money passes from hand to hand, is a thing that can be handled, and is or can be bodily transported. The application of the definition is not always easy, for money shades off into other things that serve the same purpose and are related in nature. In many problems money appears to be at the same time like and unlike other things of value, and just wherein lies the difference often is difficult to determine. Even special students differ as to the border-line of the concept, but as to the general nature of money there is essential agreement. 8.# Metal money without or with coinage#. In antiquity the metals were used as money in bulk; that is, the amount was weighed at each transaction and the quality was tested whenever there was doubt.[4] In countries industrially backward, payments are still made in this manner. For some time after the discovery of gold in California, gold dust was roughly measured out on the thumb-nail. In shipments of gold to-day by bankers to settle international balances, metal may be in the form of bars that bear the mark of some well-known banking house. In all of the cases of this kind the gold is money in fact, but not by virtue of any act of government. The metal is simply a valuable good, the receiver of which values it according to its weight and fineness. This is true even when the government mint, for a small charge, tests and stamps the bars at the request of citizens. Very early it became the practice of governments to shape and stamp pieces of metal to be used as money, so as to indicate their weight and fineness. The act of shaping and marking metal for this purpose is called coinage.[5] The coinage by government had notable advantages in giving to the monetary units uniformity of size, fineness, and value, with the stamp that was readily recognized. But in its simplest form coinage in no way changed the value of the money, and any other mark equally plain put upon it would have served equally well, if only it had carried with it equal assurance of the quality and weight of the metal.