On occasion, during a brief whimsical moment, you may focus your attention on a coin and wonder how many times that round piece of metal has changed hands before ending up in the palm of your own. You look at the mint date, raising your eyebrows almost imperceptibly, vaguely taking note. The moment passes.

A single coin, used in innumerable transactions, fungible and yet unique in its own right. But what is it really? After all, the physical coin is just a tool, no more than a means of exchange. How old is the money itself? How long has this particular currency been in circulation? The sobering answer is that many currencies have outlived centuries worth of political strife. They are an unnoticed and underappreciated element of stability for nation states and empires alike; an age-spanning constant. Let us take a closer look at the three oldest still in circulation today.

1. 3. Serbian Dinar

Let’s get the weird one over with first. Number three on the list is none other than the Serbian Dinar. You heard that right. A country that most people would struggle to point to on a map has one of the oldest currencies in the world. Its usage dates back to the thirteenth century, to 1214 if historical records are to be trusted.

Serbian Dinars were silver coins heavily inspired by the nearby Venetian currency, which were in turn derived from Roman coinage. For some reason, Serbian rulers really liked the idea of seeing their face on their coins, so much so that most of them minted their very own pieces of silver bearing their resemblance. Unfortunately, such vanity only persisted for so long before the Ottoman Empire waltzed in and occupied the area for the next four hundred years. History has not been kind to this part of the world.

The Dinar would have to wait until 1868 to make a comeback but it would be short-lived, being replaced by the Yugoslav Dinar in 1920. The Serbian dinar came back to life once again in 2003 after Yugoslavia turned into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. Although funnily enough Montenegro decided to adopt the Euro instead. Maybe they thought the Dinar was cursed.

1. 2. Russian Ruble

The second oldest currency is the Russian Ruble and it dates back to roughly the same time frame. The name is said to have come from the word “rubit”, meaning to cut or chop, because Rubles were originally cut from a rod-shaped piece of silver called a Grivna, the standard money of North-Eastern European lands of the time. From its earliest origins, the Ruble has been tied to silver, although the exact conversion rate wouldn’t be standardised until 1704, when Peter the Great reformed the monetary system of the Russian Empire and minted 28-gram silver Ruble coins.

The coins were divisible into 100 copper kopeks, making the Russian Ruble the first ever decimal currency, in stark contrast to the numismatic shenanigans we’ll get to later. The name would go on to survive the Russian revolution of 1917, becoming the currency of the Soviet Union until its eventual collapse in the 1990s, then becoming the currency of the Russian Federation. The “₽” symbol for the Ruble was only officially adopted by the Central Bank of Russia in 2013 following a public poll, in an attempt to emulate the designs of other major currencies.

1. 1. Pound Sterling

Drumroll for the number one oldest currency still in circulation: the Pound Sterling. Astoundingly, usage of the Pound dates back over a millennium to the early dark ages, around the year 800. The Roman Empire had a well-established and well-understood coinage system that spanned the breadth of its territories, including the British Isles. Unfortunately, the typically murky conditions following the fall of Rome in the fifth century are somewhat more difficult to make sense of.

It would take a few hundred years before a new dominant currency would be established, and the credit for this feat is generally attributed to King Offa of Mercia. Besides having a really cool name, Offa’s greatest accomplishment would be the standardised minting of silver pennies in large quantities, the use of which would become widespread throughout his lands. The weight of 240 such silver pennies added up to a Saxon Pound (roughly 350 grams), which is how the weight of a Pound Sterling was first defined. The “£” symbol derives from the upper-case Latin letter “L”, which stands for “Libra”, meaning scales.

Usage of these coins continued relatively uninterrupted over the next few centuries, with subsequent monarchs adding their own little personal touches. The earliest coins were minted from fine silver, which was a problem because pure silver is actually very soft, so these coins weren’t very durable. Henry II changed this in the 12th century by establishing the usage of Sterling silver, defined as 92.5% silver by weight. This metallurgical standard remains in place to this day.

The Penny and Pound wouldn’t be the only units of account to come into being during this time, many of the pre-decimal units also date back centuries. Copying the Carolingian system from the Franks, the Pound was divided into 20 shillings and the Penny into four farthings or two halfpennies. Other insane denominations would follow, including the florin, crown, half-crown, farthing, sovereign and guinea. Decimalisation in 1971 eradicated them all.

The origins of the word Sterling aren’t as clear cut. Some say the term derives from the word “steorling”, meaning “little star”, a design element which featured on the earliest Norman pennies. It’s a nice story so let’s stick with it.

Usage of the Penny and Pound would continue without interruption until the present day, the only real change being the weight of silver the coins represented. Over the course of its existence, the Pound Sterling has been continuously devalued, making up lesser and lesser amounts of silver, up until the present day where it technically isn’t redeemable for anything. Inflation has been around for a long, long time. King Offa is probably spinning in his grave.