Who made the first piece of money in the US?

Answer 1

This is a question that is nearly impossible to answer.

First, "money" in the forms of various trade goods were used in North America by the natives, well before European settlers arrived. There isn't much information on what was the "first" and even what kind of goods they used as money depended on the individual tribe.

If you mean what year did the US Federal Government start striking coins, that would be 1792 when trial pieces were struck in limited numbers.

However, things start to get a little cloudy when you go back before 1792. If you could look at what the colonists used as money back in, say, 1777, you'd find a wide variety of coins used. You'd find a lot of Spanish silver reales, some British copper half-pennies and farthings, you'd find some copper coins struck by the individual states such as Virginia or Massachusetts, you'd find some Continental Currency paper money still circulating and you'd also find plenty of privately made tokens in gold, silver and especially copper. All these things were accepted as money back then and, aside from the Spanish and British Coins, had domestic production within the boundaries of the US. Unlike today where nearly every transaction is done in dollars and cents, in the early US you'd find a multitude of different systems and currencies, each with different rates of acceptance. You'd hear prices discussed in "bits" or fractions of the Spanish 8 Reale coin, or in Pounds, Shillings and Pence.

So, in the end it is really impossible to say who created the first piece of money in the US because there were so many things used as money back before the US federal government introduced their dollar and even as recently as the US civil war, Spanish silver coins were still widely accepted and legal tender.

Answer 2

Metals objects were introduced as money around 5000 B.C. By 700 BC, the Lydians became the first in the Western world to make coins.