Wampum

Because coin money was hard to find in colonial times, colonial Americans used the Native American system for money called “wampum”. Wampum was a string of white shells. A foot-long string of the white shells was worth about 12 cents.

To make change, a merchant would break the string and count out each shell. Today, the saying, “shelling out”, still means to pay for something.

An example of a modern “wampum” bracelet, below.

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