[hdvideo id=315]
Director and Camera, Marco Wandura
Audio, Mike Fox
A 149-pound Yapese stone money has become the centerpiece of a money museum in Europe.
The German National Bank Museum, Deutsche Bundesbank is displaying the famous currency from Yap of the Federated States of Micronesia.
The museum displays money history from around the world. “We try to show that legal tender have different shapes or materials,” says Dr. Reinhold Walburg, the museum director. “It’s not always coins or bills.”
Walburg says the stone money was acquired by the museum during an auction in 1982, but there’s no information on how or when it came to Germany or the age of the stone.
Since purchasing it, the museum has not heard of any other stone money from Yap on sale or in the market.
Yapese stone money were famously carved and transported from Palau to Yap, they range from weight and sizes.