Nick Szabo  🔑

Shininess (which occurs for example from the wear of long-worn shell beads) and other visual or tactile indicia were often, in pre-Columbian indigenous environments, secure and reliable indicators of the costly history of an object, and thus its constrained supply.

Another category of indicia of scarcity was (and still is, in the art world) indicia of artistic skill and effort -- the improbability of the artistic skill involved and time needed for that rare skill to produce a work of art or craft.

Cultures that imported European collectibles or money eventually adapted their indicia, their methodologies for assessing and judging scarcity, to the new materials and techniques, but not before usually radical disruption to and inflation of their native system of collectibles.

Most modern economists think this an acceptable, or even too low, rate of inflation. But many then considered it unnatural & dangerous. Very-long-term contracts, such as centuries-long or perpetual real estate tenancies, now imposed hardships & became embroiled in disputes.