Spilt Wine

23. Of Money and Value

Tuesday 8 April 1986

There had been no trace of the now five missing people, no clues on the missing wine, but fortunately, there had been no fresh problems stacked onto Catherine's full plate. The courtyard and lawns of the château looked meticulously groomed, and Catherine was delighted so much of the interior had been cleaned. The three young female gendarmes who came in shifts hadn't been able to sit around doing nothing.

"I'll go to the box to get Le Figaro — it must have arrived by now." David rose from their breakfast at the kitchen table and headed toward the door.

A half a minute later he returned. "Look at this. Frontpage — Franc Devalued. EMS Announces Revised Currencies. Monday morning the European Monetary System announced a 3% devaluation of the Franc. The German Marc and the Dutch Guilder were revalued upwards 3%." He read aloud the lead story as he walked across the kitchen.

"Is that good or bad?"

"Yes, it is."

"Which?"

"Both."

"Okay, you're doing that again, aren't you?" She giggled, realising that he had correctly answered. "Is it good?"

"Yes, for me, I got more Francs for my exchange yesterday in Canada. For Henc and Maddie, they get a three percent smaller Franc to exchange into a three percent stronger Guilder. They lose over fourteen thousand Francs, probably over five thousand Guilders with the new rates and the exchange fees, and they still have to pay Jean-Luc his brokerage fees."

"Why do they change the rates? Do they do it often?"

"The system was set up a few years ago, 1979 or '80 to try to keep the European economies in balance with each other. Yesterday, they also revalued the Danish Krone and the Belgian and Luxembourg Francs up one percent, so the story here reads. This shows that the Dutch and German economies are much stronger, the Dane, Belge and Lux a bit stronger and the French much weaker than those in the other European countries. So, yesterday they balanced."

"How often do they do this?"

"Yes, I forgot that." He smiled at her. "As often as they see the need. This drop in the Franc is probably related to the fall in foreign revenue from decreasing tourism resulting from all the news stories reporting the series of department store bombings in Paris last fall and again this spring. The last rate change I remember was July last year. With that one, the Franc and several of the other currencies went up 2%, so your wines cost me more, and so did the Rheingau and the Mosel wines I had contracted for. The same day, they dropped the Italian Lire a whopping 6%. I saved enough on my Piedmont and Tuscan orders to more than cover the German and French shortfall."

"You like this stuff, playing with money, don't you?"

"Long ago, I realised money is a marvellous tool, but it's not meant to be gathered and amassed for itself. That's a mistake. Unless you collect and study it as a hobby, as a numismatist —"

"As a new what?"

"A numismatist. That's the formal word for a coin geek, someone who collects and studies coins."

"You do that too, I'm sure."

"Of course I do." He put up a hand. "But let me continue with my thought. Amassing huge amounts of money has no merit of its own. Its value is in what is done with it. You could use it to stuff your mattress, but that's not its purpose. It's meant to be used as a tool, as a medium of exchange. It makes trade easier."

"This is interesting, I've never looked at money in this way." She looked into her empty cup, then across at his. "I'll pull more coffee if you'll tell me more."

"That's bartering." He chuckled. "Let's imagine in the old days, before money. A man goes to the town to get a bag of wheat to make bread, taking a calf with him to trade. The calf is worth many bags of wheat, but he doesn't want many, only one. With no medium of exchange, he is faced with either paying too much for the wheat or taking much more wheat than he can use or even carry."

David watched Catherine at the espresso machine. My God, she's so gorgeous. He shook his head and continued with the story. "The man could take the extra wheat and sit at the side of the road to trade it, but what does he want in exchange, he needs nothing but a single bag of wheat. But none of the grain traders in the town want his calf. Money is the tool that eases trade, that allows commerce to flourish. It was devised and developed as a portable measure and store of value."

"When did money begin? Where?" She spoke over her shoulder as she tamped the coffee in the portafilter.

"Historians disagree on this, as they often do with so many other things. The earliest evidence of grain and cattle being used as items of barter date to about fifteen thousand years ago. But as we have seen, trading with them was difficult. Archaeologists have dated pieces of obsidian related to exchange to about ten thousand years ago in Anatolia, eastern Turkey. The obsidian was the raw material used for making sharp-edged stone-age tools. It was relatively scarce, so it had value. It is strongly believed these bulk pieces were the first money."

"And metal money? When was that?" She pushed the button to start the machine. "This really fascinates me. More, though, I'm intrigued by the sparkle it brings to your eyes."

"I've always been fascinated with it — well not always, only since my grandfather introduced me to coins and collecting with gifts on my eleventh birthday."

"So continue your story — metal money. When? Where?" Catherine brought the coffees to the table.

David moved the cup under his nose, inhaled lightly then took a sip. "You pull a great espresso." He peered into her eyes. "You really are interested in this, aren't you?"

"I'm interested in what drives you, in what drives your intense and diverse interests. You are certainly not a simple person."

"Okay..." he paused and blushed. "We know the Egyptians had gold in fixed weights over five thousand years ago as a medium of exchange. There is earlier evidence of silver bars being used in Mesopotamia for exchange. A three-thousand-year-old tomb in China held what is believed to be the earliest coin, a piece of cast copper with designs."

He stopped to take another sip of his coffee, then continued with the story. "Among the first monetary systems was the shekel of Mesopotamia around five thousand years ago. The shekel stood for the value of a measure of barley and also for the equivalent values of silver, bronze and copper."

He paused and thought. She really is interested; her eyes haven't wandered, they haven't glazed-over. "Anyway, to cut the story short, much later, the British used this concept of a single unit to stand for both weight and currency. Their original pound was a piece of silver weighing one pound. Dividing this, twelve ounces to the pound —"

"Twelve? No there were sixteen ounces to the pound when I lived in Ireland." She smiled, then with a giggle, she added, "Your math isn't infallible after all."

"Yes, sixteen, you're right, but that's in the avoirdupois system. Money uses the troy ounce; twelve to the pound. You're sure I'm not boring you with this. Women have always been bored with it."

"Not at all, I'm actually fascinated with it. I'm fascinated by your passion for it."

"Okay, but please stop me when you need to breathe." He grinned. "So, with twenty shillings to the pound, twelve pence to the shilling, the first British penny was a piece of silver, weighing one-two-hundred-and-fortieth of a pound."

"When was that?"

"The first are those in the seventh century struck by the Anglo-Saxons. They're the people who invaded Britain in the fifth century at the fall of the Roman Empire. Many of the people they displaced there fled, many of them crossed the Irish Sea, others crossed the Channel to Brittany." He looked at Catherine's rich red hair. "Probably your early ancestors."

"So, what about —"

"Enough about me." He gazed into her eyes. "Your eyes are green like mine, but your hair is much redder. Tell me more about you."

"But my life is so uninteresting compared to yours." She looked down at her finger doing circles around the rim of her cup.

"Let me be the judge about that. Come, tell me about you."