NOMISMA
The money stories in the news make sense through history.
Scams, prices, banks. An online course for adults on reading the present through the history of money.
- Scandals and scams — Why do even smart people fall for offers that sound too good? — Read for free: Fraud Schemes and How to Protect Yourself (about 8 min)
- Everyday money — Your pay stays the same, so why can you buy less and less? — Start here: How Banks, Interest Rates, and Prices Work
- Money in Japan — 3 courses
- Money of the world — 30 courses
- Coins — 19 courses
Free, without signing up, you can read all of this
- The full text of the course “Fraud Schemes and How to Protect Yourself” (about 8 min)
- The 19 country histories of money: chapter 1 of each (chapters 1–5 of “The world history of money”)
- Trial readings of the illustrated books (in “Reading Money from Incidents”, one whole incident)
- The full text of the illustrated book “Is It Really True? Checking History” (including the course of the same name)
- 436 items in the coin and banknote gallery, and 461 entries in the glossary
Money scandals repeat
The events differ each time, but the mechanism returns in the same shape.
Fraud tactics, how a financial dynasty began, bubbles that keep returning. When you read about the money events of the past, you’ll see today’s news in a new light.
Why learn now
At school we hardly ever learned about money.
Inflation, a weak currency, interest rates, bank failures. The words in the news change every year, but the same things have happened again and again in the long history of money. Knowing what happened before tells you what today’s news means.
Six questions
When you’re done, you’ll be able to talk to your family in your own words.
At NOMISMA, you’ll explore six questions through the history of money and coins.
What is money?
Starting from the story of the first coins, the three jobs of money — exchanging for things, measuring prices, and saving — come into view.
When someone asks “what is money, anyway?”, you can answer in your own words.
What inflation really is
You see, through examples from history, how money gradually loses its worth.
You understand the difference between “things are getting dearer” and “money is worth less”, and the news about prices starts to make sense.
Trust and the state
You understand why plain paper can work as money, and the moment it stops working.
When a currency is starting to lose people’s trust, you know what to watch out for.
Gold and paper
You follow, in order, the age when money was tied to gold, up to the point where that tie was cut.
You can explain to others what today’s money is backed by.
Bad money and good money
From the history of coins whose gold and silver were reduced, you understand what happens when money loses quality.
The weight and markings of a single coin start to show you the circumstances of the age that made it.
How far can past and present be compared?
You learn to tell apart the events that look very alike then and now, and the points where they clearly differ.
When you hear “this time is just like that event in the past”, you can say what is alike and what is different. NOMISMA does not try to predict future price movements.
From one coin to today
Look at the coins, check, and read.
From a single coin, through silver coins, banknotes, banks, and central banks, all the way to account balances and digital money. For each of the 436 images we use, we clearly state the source and license (357 sources). For example: let’s look at the Wadōkaichin, familiar from school textbooks, through four questions.
About the teacher
So that you can check things for yourself, whether you are listening to a bank’s explanation or inheriting your family’s money.
- Mitsuru Hayama, who has spent his career in finance and coins, shows you how.
The operating company, Convoy Switch Inc., holds a secondhand goods dealer permit (Fukuoka Prefectural Public Safety Commission No. 901032010105). The founder is involved in buying and selling antique coins at this company. For that reason NOMISMA issues no authentication, valuation or price opinion on any individual coin. Nor does it recommend buying or selling any individual item.
Inside NOMISMA
What you can do at NOMISMA.
Read the history of money as stories in the illustrated books. Take your time with the themes that interest you in the courses. See images of coins and banknotes in the gallery. And the famous money crises of history change how you see today’s news.
Price
One payment, made once.
¥49,800 (tax included, one-off)
About ¥730 per course. No monthly fees, no time limit (for as long as the service continues), and new courses are included as they are added.
From the day your access starts, you can read every course.
Read all the courses (¥49,800, one-off)
Read for free first (No sign-up · about 8 min)
Our materials are for learning. We do not give investment advice.