Commodity money Commodity money Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects that have value in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as value in their use as money. Examples of commodities that have been used as mediums of exchange include gold, silver, copper, salt, peppercorns, tea, large stones (such as Rai stones), decorated belts, shells, alcohol, cigarettes, cannabis, silk, candy, nails, cocoa beans, cowries and barley. These items were sometimes used in a metric of perceived value in conjunction to one another, in various commodity valuation or price system economies.
Commodity price index the index. The first such index was the CRB ("Commodity Research Bureau") Index, which began in 1958. Due to its construction it was not useful as an investment index. The first practically investable commodity futures index was the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index, created in 1991 and known as the "GSCI". The next was the Dow Jones AIG Commodity Index. It differed from the GSCI primarily in the weights allocated to each commodity. The DJ AIG had mechanisms to periodically limit the weight of any one commodity and to remove commodities whose weights became too small. After AIG's financial problems in