Barter is often regarded
as an old-fashioned means of exchange that was superseded because money is far more
efficient. After all, in a monetary system an apple grower who needs shoes simply has to
find a cobbler. In a pure barter system the apple grower would have to find not just any
cobbler but one who happened to want apples at that time. However the inconvenience of
barter was just one factor, and in most places was probably not the most significant one,
in the origin of money.
Barter and money are not necessarily completely incompatible. One of the most important improvements over the
simplest forms of early barter was first the tendency to select one or two particular
items in preference to others. This is because that the preferred barter items became
partly accepted because of their qualities in acting as media of exchange. Although, of
course, they still could be used for their primary purpose of directly satisfying the
wants of the traders concerned.