The Coin That Kept Lying
Pick up a fifty-pence piece. Feel the weight of it. Now imagine spending your whole life suspicious of that weight…
Money History
Three Thousand Years of Honest Money, Ended by a Ship
There is a small sea snail living in the Maldives. The species is called Cypraea moneta. The shell of this…
The Trick That’s Been Played on You Since Ancient Rome
Your salary is made of salt. Not literally – your bank isn't quietly filling a vault with sodium chloride somewhere…
The Paint That Cost More Than the Portrait
There is a fresco in a church in Germany from the thirteenth century. The Virgin Mary's robes are the most…
The Colour You’re Wearing Would Have Got You Arrested
Somewhere in your wardrobe right now there is almost certainly something purple. A jumper, a scarf, half a pair of…
The One Thing a Government Can’t Print More Of
In 1923, a loaf of bread in Weimar Germany cost 200 billion marks. People were burning banknotes in their stoves…