Barter is often regarded as an old-fashioned means of exchange that was superseded because money is far more efficient.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.