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Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth

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44. Other metals are only employed for these uses, in a secondary manner.

All metals are capable of being employed as money. But those which are too common have too little value in a large bulk to be employed in the current uses of commerce. Copper, silver, and gold, are the only ones which have been brought into constant use. And even copper, except among people to whom neither mines nor commerce have supplied a sufficient quantity of gold or silver, has never been used but in exchanges of small value.