What is the underlying value of a clam? In short, nothing. But the clamshell was the world’s longest-lasting reserve currency, recognised globally for thousands of years as a store of value and a medium of exchange. The clamshell was the money English colonists found the indigenous populations using when they first landed in America — a currency known as “wampum”. And since the one thing the Mayflower men had not brought enough of to the New World was money, the clever colonists immediately began manufacturing their own wampum. Unfortunately, the inferior quality of their hastily fashioned shell beads set off a cycle of clamshell inflation, and eventually destroyed the currency.
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