Note 874 — Chapter XIII · THE FORM-WORLD OF ECONOMIC LIFE (A) MONEY
Charles Francis Atkinson translation
Neither the copper pieces of the Italian Villanova-graves of early Homeric times (Willers, Gesch. d. röm. Kupferprägung, p. 18) nor the early Chinese bronze coins in the form of women’s drapery (pu), bells, rings, or knives (tsien, Conrady, China, p. 504) are described as money, but quite distinctly symbols of goods. And the coins struck by the governments of early Gothic times (in imitation of the Classical) as signs of sovereignty figured in economic life only as wares; a piece of gold is worth as much as a cow, but not vice versa.