Examples of Money
During World War I, the Russian Tsar was deposed and replaced with Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevick party. This caused a civil war between the Red Army (the Bolsheviks) and the White Army, led by a number of military officers who had formerly served the Tsar. The Red Army one, causing the White Army's officer to flee to other regions. One of these officers, Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg, was quite fond of Mongolians, and showed his regard by chasing the Chinese out of Mongolia and placing the Bogd Kahn back on the throne. Ostensibly the Kahn ran the country, but the real ruler was Ungern.
In his attempt to bring stability to the country in 1920, he created a new Mongolian currency. The bills were printed on wood blocks, painted by hand, and has no gold or silver to back it up. Yet he knew that commodity money was essential if people were to trust it, so instead they backed the currency with the livestock owned by the Bogd Kahn. Each denomination had a picture of a different animal. The sheep was on the ten-dollar bill, a cow on the twenty-five, and since Mongolians revered the horse above any animal, it was on the fifty. For some reason the camel was on the $100.
This currency was linked to the Mexican dollar, which means the Mongolian government determined the currency exchange ratio between the two currencies, not markets.(P1)
References
Palmer, James. 2009. The Bloody White Baron. Basic Books: London, UK.
