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Shell money - commodity money, used worldwide (some places even today like in Papua New Guinea). Small, portable, durable, neutral, impossible to counterfeit and stable against inflation.

Chinese traditional character 貝 (simplified 贝) bèi depicts probably the most popular type of shell money used in ancient China and worldwide - cowrie shells (Cypraea moneta/Monetaria moneta).

On the other hand, Inuit and Native Americans prefered dentalium shells and used them as an international trade item.

Some places shells were/are fastened together in strings of forty or one-hundred each, so that fifty or twenty strings represented a dollar.