Would paper money actually be worthless in the apocalypse?

[mindlessobserver]

Society will almost never collapse to a pre-industrial stone age either. Look at what happened to the people rocked by Hurricane Helene. With electricity and communications knocked out, if you didn't have cash on hand you got to stand on the side of the road with your hand held out. What stores were open were cash only.

Cash Money gets a bad rap from Preppers, but it should be included in every Happening Preparation Kit.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

To answer the original question for a VERY short period of time yes, but it's a sellers market for the ones who'll take it, an then not really, it's one of the reasons in a civil war the other side issues its own official currency to delegitimise the other sides and also destroy or cease any stockpiles of old cash when you can.

Some modern writers are coming to believe that credit came first, with members of a community constantly doing "favors" for each other. Lazy pieces of shit who exploited this system would be killed or driven out. Standardized currency only came into being after the development of large trading endeavors and organized armies according to this narrative.

Stone Axes where a trade item, some quite complex trade routes an be roughly mapped out an follow quite a lot of later ones. too but human social culture is interrently transactional and we got better at understanding an planning out what me might need for more than the week after next etc eventually leading to Agriculture, that is also suspected to be something much earlier than the fertile crescent.

 

[Smar Mijou]

Alot of people in this thread really haven't looked into world history. One of the most repeated cases throughout history, is that whenever a society completely collapses, fiat currency issued by whatever authority, eventually becomes worthless. On a base level, things crucial to survival are essential, guns/ammo, other weapons, food, shelter, etc. Bartering for goods/services is the norm until a new authority is established. It goes like this every single time without fail. Reichsmarks during WW2, where they were more valuable for kindling than currency. The Dinar during the Bosnian war in the 90s, where the entire area was essentially barricaded, money was worthless, and the locals were left to fend for themselves in a war torn Mad Max type hellscape, and any number of African civilization collapses. Of special note are the Hungarian million billion bank note, and the One Hundred Trillian dollar Zimbabwe note as extreme examples of hyperinflation when an authority collapses.



Precious metals and gems are unique in that they always tend to hold some sort of value, even if it's for future use. That's consistent throughout recorded history, while obsolete currency usually only holds value for it's historical significance. Even then, common coins were often melted down because the precious metals used were seen as more valuable than the coins that were minted from them.