what other currencies were used in the past before gil was adopted?

i was just wondering, what currencies did the various city states, empires, and civilizations throughout eorzea's history use before the adoption and use of gil?

TL;DR
Gil has only been in use for about a hundred years, and before that every city had its own currency. The complicated exchange rates, however, led many merchants to just use Allagan pieces.

Whole Story

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The currency now commonly referred to as “gil” was officially adopted by the city-states of Eorzea roughly one-hundred years ago, as a means to strengthen trade relations in the wake of the Autumn War.

Prior to this, each city-state minted and regulated its own currency, which led to unpredictable exchange rates and prompted many traders to use ancient Allagan pieces in lieu of other coinage. Recognizing the wisdom of the practice (and desiring greater control over the money supply), the leaders of Eorzea announced the creation of new gil, and further decreed that its value would be standardized across all nations. Moreover, to help encourage adoption, it was designed in the image of its precursors.

Initially, as an expression of solidarity, these coins were to be engraved with images of the Twelve, rather than those of individuals beloved of a single nation. As time passed and the gil rose to prominence, however, the policy was relaxed, and the coin came to bear an ever increasing variety of motifs. Those minted to commemorate the reformation of the Eorzean Alliance are a notable example from recent years.

But to finally answer the question which prompted this discussion: the face on the gil coin icon in the UI is that of Nymeia, the Spinner. For simplicity’s sake, we’ve elected to represent all gil with this graphic.

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Back in my day, we had to collect 10,000 pieces of currency outdated by 20 years for our weapons because the Gobbies were too stingy to accept payment in gil.

Bloody gobbies.

Moose covered it pretty well. But if you were to go back even further before the establishment of the city-states, I'd assume they used a barter system of some kind as well. That was very common in ancient cultures before the establishment of currencies.

Based on the Mhachi Farthing, it looks like Mhachi used a £sd currency system. I would not be surprised if the tokens in the next 24 man end up being Mhachi Penny or Mhachi Shilling with the final raid having Mhachi Shillings/Pounds.

I feel like past currencies would make for a really cool rare drop (like, ULTRA RARE), and be exchangeable for unique items or much larger sums of gil, kinda like the way if you find a really old coin now it could be worth substantially more than it's printed value. Not only would this be plain cool, but it would make for a nice (albeit very rare) bonus for people who run dungeons and raids regularly. Kinda like the syrcus shard drop in ST. It was super rare, but was a pretty hefty reward if you ever saw it.

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Originally Posted by Februs

I feel like past currencies would make for a really cool rare drop (like, ULTRA RARE), and be exchangeable for unique items or much larger sums of gil, kinda like the way if you find a really old coin now it could be worth substantially more than it's printed value. Not only would this be plain cool, but it would make for a nice (albeit very rare) bonus for people who run dungeons and raids regularly. Kinda like the syrcus shard drop in ST. It was super rare, but was a pretty hefty reward if you ever saw it.

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Make it a random drop too instead of a chest item. Like the way the Inferno Horns and stuff worked pre 3.0.

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Originally Posted by Kaiser-Ace

Make it a random drop too instead of a chest item. Like the way the Inferno Horns and stuff worked pre 3.0.

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Yeah. Would be pretty cool to get em. Depending on what kind of value they put on them, it would give people an incentive to run certain dungeons (assuming the currency you find is tied to a specific area/demographic). Slap on a little lore tag to the item description and it would be a pretty cool thing to add to the game.