Oooo, look at her money go! It shot up and attached itself to the back of the class! It was so prettiful back there. She gave it a little wave and a smile before turning to the Professor and paying attention once more.

Ah, and now they were talking about different currency. She thought of all the ones people were saying but they were already said. This forced her to think harder. Her father worked with different muggle currency all the time. It was a part of what he did when he went to work or something but she wasn't sure exactly what he did...just that he had a lot of business books and a pretty paycheck at the end of each month.

Ummm...

Another currency. Ah hah! She stuck her hand in the air. "Professor, in Norway they use something called the Krone." At least...that's what she thought she remembered. "They got 1, 5, 10 & 20 in coins and 50, 100, 200, 500 & 1000 in banknotes." Was she meant to say anything else? No?

Thinking was going on in the Slytherin's brain. Hufflepuff's newest, well whatever position she was (Sky hadn't bothered to find out) had already thrown out the currency she was going to say. So, it was time to think of something else. Problem was, people had already said ones from most of the countries she'd visited. And she couldn't remember Italy's as it had been so long ago that she'd visited. Blegh. Which meant that she was only left with one. "In Canada, they use basically the same system as the U.S. Their bills and coins are just designed differently." True story. And she'd always thought their money looked better than her home country's. Then again, that could've just been novelty talking.....

What types of currencies existed in the muggle world? Thinking a bit Kahlan found herself tapping on the chair that she was sitting on, nose scrunched up as she thought.

"Oooh, in Vietnam they use 'dong'" she finally blurted out in a moment of silence. "And I think in Israel they use shekel" the blonde continued her musings as she remembered some of the holidays she'd been on. Though that was actually a rare occurrence for her family.

Dylan eyed the little boy with the badger on his robes...as he talked about Euros and France. He was of French descent...So, he appreciated someone mentioning it...to a degree. He'd wanted to use that as an answer, of course...The Slytherin wasn't that familiar with money in different parts of the world. He knew about Canadian, American...and European...

So, he'd do an add on. "Additionally about Euros...It's used by a bunch of different countries...most within Europe, given the name. Places like..." The Slytherin had to stop and think....Basic geography from back in the day, you know? "Italy, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Greece, Ireland....." Yea, there were a bunch of them. "I think it's a total of 25 to 28 countries that actually use Euros. Also, if I'm not mistaken...it's the second most traded currency in the world."...because his mother was French and stuff. He knew things about it.

Hair flip.

"The kid was right about the way it's broken down, too."...because Dylan felt his approval was needed in relation to that.

"Lots of countries use dollars." West noted, hand raised. "Like New Zealand, which is the one what I did for my note picture thing. But its not worth as much as like... the Australian dollar or the United States dollar. And I read they used to have lower denomination stuff, like dollar and two dollar bills, but they got made into coins, and they used to have one and two and five cent coins but then they got rid of them. Like I guess because lower value stuff isn't really of any value anymore, you have to spend more money now and stuff. You can't really buy things for one cent, and when you can its more like.... ten for ten. " Just stuff he'd read.

Gemma shook her head up and down as she wrote all of the different types of currency from around the world on the board. When the answers started dwinddling out, she stepped back and glanced at the list. "Brilliant." she said and then turned back to the students after flipping the board over again and erasing it.

"That is a great list of currency...now those are types of currency currently used. Through the years, money and currency has changed immensely and money wasn't always the type of money used in sales and bartering. In some coastal communities, they used shells and pearls as a form of currency. " she paused and let that sink in..then she continued, "What other items do you think they used to use instead of money to pay for stuff?" she said with a smile.

Theo didn't bother thinking of an answer to the last question, since he didn't know THAT many, and the popular choices were already mentioned. Even the next question was kinda hard, and also kinda brief. This was supposed to be muggle studies. EASY. The boy raised his hand anyway. "Old jewelry. Like... gold necklaces are worth a lot so people could've sold those." Maybe.

The young girl listened and tried to think of something else to pay with and listened to the answers from the others. She came to the conclusion that the Muggles were really strange, with all those different ways to pay wit. And again, Sonea was happy that she was born in a wizard family and not a Muggle one! She had once watched a muggle family when she needed to wait for her maid and she had stared openly at the muggles. They had been wearing strange clothes and everything they did was so simple!

Suddenly she remembered a book she had read and the Muggles in the book were paying with gold and diamonds, the book was old and the pages were already discolored, but the book had been funny to read. The black haired girl raised her hand and spoke hesitating. “I think that they have also paid with Gold, Diamonds and I have heard that the Romains also accepted cereals plants as a currency…” Sonea sat back down and listened to what the others were saying.

Sarah quickly raised her hand, "well there was cattle, like sheep and cows that was used for bartering. Even in some parts of Africa, a dowry can consist of cattle. The people centuries ago were very happy with their lot" Sarah was going to say primitive, yet she did not think that would be nice "there whole life revolved around cattle as they were nomadic farmers. Cattle could be used for produce as well"

In fact funny stories are told about when paper money and an old thing called cheques came out, they were disregarded as they were not gold or cattle.

Oh! This one she knows quite well. For the first time ever in her entire stay in Hogwarts, Aquila eagerly shot her hand up for the reply “In our island, we trade raw materials for what we make— mostly stuff for healing like potions and balm and amulets... things they know we make really well and cant be found anywhere else.” Precious items aren’t always made of gold and silver.

Nigel was getting interested in this lesson. Muggle money was a fascinating thing. This paper had value. How awesome is that. "Well people traded gems, such as rubies and emeralds, for items and materials that they needed in their lives"

Nigel was not sure where is took place. But was sure it did happen sometime.

Currency.

Ella didn't know too much about the currency from other places but her Granddad and her mom used to travel lots so she had heard some things and seen some different styles of bills and coins. Hm. She raised her hand and said, "Professor, in Belize they use Belize dollars. " And apparently 2 Belize dollars equaled 1 US dollar but Ella didn't care about US things for mom reasons.

And other ways to pay for things besides money?

"Professor, didn't they trade goods they needed? Like...say animals or food or anything else that could be important to day to day life?"

Old forms of currency...? She could have sworn her father told her something about that too. Yeah...in fact she was sure he did because she remembered thinking that some of them were really strange. Then again, ancient people were very strange and chose the hardest methods to achieve the simplest things. It wasn't their fault though.

Lex raised her hand, practically bouncing around in the squishy chair until finally she was acknowledge.

"Well Professor, the people from far back in a time that I don't know used to use things that we wouldn't really consider useful, like they'd use dog teeth, spearheads, fish hooks, animal hides and even arrow heads."

She couldn't see how they'd be valuable but then she couldn't see how paper was valuable either so she would just leave it at that.

Tucker raised his hand. "This is stretching it a bit professor, but wouldn't people basically use their daughters hand in marriage for currency in some ways as well?" he asked. He was sure to get some odd looks for that one so he explained it more.

"I mean, kings and stuff would usually use their daughters to secure treaties with other kingdoms by marrying them off, and often times other nobles would marry off their daughters for land or other goods," he explained. "They must have been SUPER desperate," he added. That was just cruel. He couldn't imagine his mum shipping him off to marry someone for an ox or something.

Alice had been staying rather quiet and mostly focusing on her cupcake and doodling, because that food was good. The best thing about Muggle Studies, she'd decided, and the only thing that kept her from falling asleep in it nowadays, was the fact that Cerulean always gave them sugar. Good way to keep kids awake, you know? And also bribery for class participation, but yeah. Soda. Sweets. It was more than acceptable. So she sat contentedly. And drew (but there was no artistic ability to be found in her, so the professor was just setting herself up for disappointment).

And then she was done, and had fake Alice money and stuff. Quidditch uniforms FTW.

She also didn't know of too many Muggle currencies (who cared, anyway? Weren't there wizards in Germany and Switzerland and wherever that used galleons and sickles and knuts, too? So it wasn't like they'd ever NEED Muggle money, plus if they did, there were converters. Did wizards in other countries not use their currency, though? That would have been more helpful to learn about, tyvm, professor). But after listening to a couple of answers, she thought of one. "Abkhazia's currency is the apsar. Only coins in denominations of 10 and 50 apsars have been issued or something."

Like, Alice didn't know about France or Germany or Bulgaria or New Zealand, but she could do Abkhazia.

"You could trade food." Alice would definitely barter with stuff for sandwiches and things. Better than other things that no one wanted. She most definitely did not want anybody's daughters like that one Hufflepuff had said. Seemed like a totally awful bargain in her opinion.

Yep...their answers had been brilliant. Just saying...Good of the Professor to recognize that.

"How about....services? Like............I'll give you this...if you do something for me type thing." Dylan shrugged, trying to think of an example..."Kinda like we're doing here these days. 'WILL WORK FOR FOOD'"

Smirk.

It was legit.

Raising her hand Mackenzie smiled, "Professor, people used to use dishes and silver I do believe. Or anything they may have had on their persons considered valuable." She looked around sitting back into her seat as she waited on the lesson to continue.

What other things could be used for trading? Hmmm. Lexi tried to think back to what her mother had told her about the worth of certain things. Didn't she say something about beads, like the clear glass ones. Some were more rare and hard to make so they were worth more. That sounded like a good answer to Lexi.

She raised her hand and waited to be called on. "Professor in some cultures didn't people trade beads. And since some beads were harder to make they were worth more. I heard that it was really hard to make clear glass beads, so I'm guessing that those would cost more than the beads that were much easier to make." There, that sounded like a good sounding answer to Lexi and hopefully the teacher thought so also.

Minerva listened to all the difference currencies, wow there were so many. She had only really used two of those forms. When the next question came, Minerva thought of many different things that were traded and raised her hand, but by the time it was her turn she felt that all the things she was going to say had been said.

Now what could she say, not even sure if it had been brought up she put her hand up again, " professor people used animals for trade." The used crops as well, but again she couldn't remember if they had been said yet or not.

Jory was impressed with the list of currencies everyone had come up with. He scribbled a few he didn't know much about before turning his attention to the next question.

He raised his hand after some thought. "Professor, people used whatever they had at hand in order to obtain what they wanted,'' the Puffer said. "Clothes, food items and animals even. But sometimes problems arised because both sides had to trade something the other side wanted.'' He hoped he made sense.

Kace was listening intently to the students saying what type of currency is used around the world. He never knew there were so many used around the world. Then again there were many countries and not just the United States in which he lived in.

Then he heard the professor ask what other items were used to pay for stuff besides money? Kace only heard of animals being used to pay for stuff and clothing but students already mentioned that. He kind of wanted to think outside the box.

"Professor i know people used foods such as potatoes and chickens to pay for stuff such as surgeries such as a broken bone or delivering a baby." Kace nodded and hopefully thought he was right.

Nerida was amazed at the list of currencies everyone had come up with. She scribbled a few she didn't recognize, some she had never even heard of!

Her hand raised after some thought to the answer for the question. [B]"Professor, in some of the undeveloped countries, people use anything, mostly other resources that they have to trade/buy. Like for trading food, they trade for lets say potatoes with whatever they have grown at their own home/garden,'' the blonde said.

"Bricks of tea." West said hand up. "In parts of Asia because it was valuable there, since it could also be consumed and used as medicine." He'd read about it when reading about tea for Divination stuff actually. That was always cool when you found something out for a different class doing stuff for another class.

Okay, time for some out of the box thinking. Because answers were starting to be repeated. Repeatedly. And that was boring. Though, one that suggested people's daughters got a good sound glare from Sky. As if. Nobody was trading her for nothing. Jerk. Anywho, back to her out of the box thinking. "I heard that people trade favors for their lives when dealing with vampires." Technically, they were still humans, right? Just dead. So it worked.

Currency?

Hmph, well since Ascanius had never really had much access to money before for reasons he was really accustomed to other means of getting stuff. Yeah? A lot of people had already given a lot of the examples that he had thought out. So yeah. But he did have one that he used all the time back at the home.

He rose his hand and said, "I.O.U.s." In fact, he HAD one from a Miss Alice Fischer that he was saving for a rainy day.