“Currency” only has meaning when there is the luxury of a marketplace. If the world is in survival mode then there is no marketplace, there is only survival.
A reasonable example of this was the Pilgrims in Massachusetts between 1620 and 1660.
When the Pilgrims arrived here, they did not use “currency”. There was no marketplace. They were too busy doing what it took to survive to buy and sell. The few tools and small amount of food they had was parceled out according to rules that they had: if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat, unless there were extenuating circumstances. That was, for example, the mother of Peregrine White, the first child born in America, on the Mayflower while it was anchored in Plymouth. Although she wasn’t “idle” she certainly wasn’t doing the kind of heavy labor the others did.
And it was a lot like the apocalypse: 45 of the 102 passengers died the first year, just like they would in an apocalypse and the biggest cause was scurvy and malnutrition. They simply couldn’t find enough to eat and enough of the right foods to eat, just like any apocalypse survivors.
And like survivors of the end of the war, they suffered attacks by roving bands of outsiders who wanted their guns and metal tools and the little livestock they had. Otherwise, the Pilgrims had nothing the Indians wanted. And like any real apocalypse, disease was rampant, particularly Smallpox which wiped out the Indians at a much greater rate than the Pilgrims, but they died too over the ensuing years, at a 30 percent rate annually (The Indians died at a 70 percent rate; by the time of the King Philips War, 3/4s of all the Indians in New England were dead). The only thing that kept the colony from collapsing was the arrival of new ships with more people – and more food.
Over the next 10 years the Pilgrims moved from merely survival to building a society. Unlike the notional drawings we have of them, they did not live in houses. They lived in mud huts made of coppiced branches built into a dome. Sometimes they dug into the hard packed sand and made multi-room caves with wooden doors. Only one actual building existed those first years, and it was a crude meeting house surrounded by a pallisade. The last of the Pilgrim caves was bulldozed away in 1920 because no one thought those things were worth keeping then, a hole in the ground, and bums were by then living in them. Everything they needed was passed around, especially axes and adzes and iron tools used to dig or work wood. Nothing was “owned”. No one could say, “That axe is mine, you can’t use it.” We know exactly, to the number of nails, how many iron tools arrived on the Mayflower.
This is the Peak House in Medfield, Ma, built in 1651, the only example of Medieval Elizabethan architecture left in the US. This tiny house had a huge number of people living in it and includes one room and a loft. Most of the house is taken up by the fireplace. By the time this house was being built, the diamond shaped glass windows were going out of style and being replaced by single pane on a hinge or 6 over 6 panes. Glass was incredibly expensive as the Pilgrims couldn’t find the right kind of sand to make it (Eventually, the sand of Sandwich was discovered to be the right kind and a massive glass works was built there. Side note: any town with the word “wich” at the end was a place where salt was made. Salt was the most important industry in the area at the time). Most houses couldn’t afford or find glass and instead used oiled, white paper to cover the window and let in light which is why tiny panes were needed.
The Pilgrims figured out that surviving through the winter was the key to survival so they had to put enough away to be self-sufficient for a year; that is, until the crops came in. As time went on, they made and grew everything they needed. They didn’t have iron or the ability to make it, so everything they made was from wood or clay. In those days, owning a Pewter tankard or spoon was so important that sometimes the only possession willed to a child or family member was the metal spoon. The Pewter tankard was reserved for the Elder or a guest. Otherwise, spoons and plates and cups were carved out of wood and considered of no real value. When wooden buildings were made, they consisted of one room with a massive stone fireplace – and no chimney. The chimneys were added later or made of wood covered with mud and houses burned down a lot. This is because building “up” required contributed manpower and everyone was busy. If another room was added, it was used as the “storeroom and manger” because otherwise your animals lived with you and all your possessions. The houses were never painted and it wasn’t until the 1700s that painting – on the trim only – came into being, and when paint did start, every house was painted red because “Indian Red” ochre was the most common dye substance available. Eventually, the interiors were painted with lime wash and made white. When wallpaper finally made it’s way here it was a big, big deal but that was later, after “Apocalypse Time” was over.
The most important thing people could get were apples. Apples were the savior of the colonies, and fish. A family went through eight barrels of apple cider a year and at least one barrel of vinegar. Vinegar was precious. The pilgrims noticed within 15 years that they were overfishing the rivers and oceans and that they had to move further and further away from home to find any deer. Just like in an apocalypse, there were no restrictions on hunting or fishing and within 15 years, they had to put restrictions because they were hunting and fishing the stock out of existence. On the other hand, apples could be stored for a year in barrels filled with sand as long as they didn’t touch each other. (“One bad apple ruins the whole bunch”) and were separated by layers of beach sand.
In those days, other trade goods were blankets. Blankets were precious items. To make a single blanket could take a 100 hours of labor, if you had the sheep to shear. You had to shear the sheep, card the wood, wash the wool, spin it into yarn and then hand knit or loom it into something usable. A man’s coat took a minimum of 60 hours to make – and that was between all other tasks. It wasn’t 60 hours straight out. Clothes made out of linen were even harder (but wore better) because linen was an incredibly labor intensive operation to create, even before it was spun into cloth. Many times, worn out ship sails were made into clothing, called “duck pants”.
The other precious currency was salt. Salt was so precious that it was one of the first things people looked for when they came, brine pits and springs. But they didn’t find any so they had to make it from seawater. The first patent in America was to a Salem man who invented a way of making salt from sea water, a process that takes considerable time. The word “salary” comes from salt because salt was so important that it was often used as currency and it was re-used over and over. Salt was the main way that meat and fish was preserved for winter and it required considerable amounts. (When Lewis and Clark were sent off on their peripatetic journey across America later in 1805, one of Jefferson’s three goals to them was to find salt. If there was no salt, there would be no westward expansion). You cannot live a hand-to-mouth existence forever and there is no guarantee that deer is going to come along when you’re hungry so you can shoot it and eat it. And there is no guarantee you will STILL have ammunition left when it does come by. So storing up carcasses, preserved in brine or salt rubs was the only way to make sure you had food for the winter.
As time went on, things made of steel, such as knives, were of high value. The first mill in America was the Saugus Iron Works (still there in Saugus as a museum) which made pig iron, rolled iron and some nails. It went out of business in 1670 or so because it was badly run and because the Puritans hated the hard drinking, hard swearing, whoring Swedes and Finns who worked there and who refused to go to church. The only reason they weren’t hanged was because the settlers were desperate for iron.
By 1640 or so, or within 20 years of landing, Pilgrims began using “real” currency. It started with colored beads, called “wampum” after the Indian way and worked until a Dutch concern came in and started manufacturing beads in secret in Duxbury and flooded the marked and wiped out the value of the currency. After that, the Pilgrims used real money, but there was damned little of it. It created was was known as “The Great Currency Shortage”. It was English currency most of the time, but by the Pilgrims were trading with New Amsterdam/New York and other coastal communities in America. The problem was that there were five or more different currencies being used, five different monetary systems, no banks, no authority other it than the leaders who could say how many guilders were worth a shilling and so on. And there were few people who could determine exactly how many sheep were worth a barrel of cider. But then, everyone knew everyone else and the trade had to be mutually amicable or eventually, someone would condemn the other of being a witch and they would be hanged in the town common.
In a modern day apocalypse the currency would be the decision of the moment, what you need versus what you have. As Ben Franklin once said, “Necessity never made a good bargain”. I would guess that in an apocalypse, which is a world much like the Pilgrims in 1620, your main needs would be shelter, warmth, food and tools. I would guess the most fungible currency, easily carried and whose value was immediately apparent, and one that lasted a long time would be bullets.
