First off, for the sake of simplicity, let’s limit our discussion to 18th century America. Money is a store of value, and there are many kinds of money. In the colonial era, money was (arguably) much more complicated than it is now: each colony would issue their own bills of credit, which all had their own values. So, for example, a Pennsylvania pound might be worth less than a New York pound of the same denomination. Also worth noting about money in the colonial era is that the “stored value” of the bills of credit were redeemable for actual gold or silver. Money that is redeemable for gold or silver are known as specie (pronounced SPEE-sha).
