"the first banknotes were issued by Stockholms Banco in 1661 and used alongside coins. it did not work well, and had to be stopped because the banks kept running out of coins to pay on the notes."
HaHa. You've sure condensed the world's oldest con game and one of the most insidious destroyers of human values into that short sentence! I speak of fractional reserve banking.
That's true, but I think the greatest con-artist in history is Hephaestus by far. He was the one who "unintentionally" (not a good guard) gave fire to mankind and from what I found out while doing research for this article, he helped Hera to escape and thus give humans gold.
If you think about it, from the day man relied on gold (money) and started eating his steak medium well (accompanied with fries), he became too greedy and soft, while humanity was doomed to become the lazy mess it is today :P
Well then, since the cat is out of the bag and we now have both fire and money, perhaps we need heed Garth: