Silver that has been cut or hacked into small pieces, used as currency or trade goods in medieval and Viking times before standardized coinage.
From German 'Hacksilber' (hack/cut + silver). This term describes a monetary system where merchants and traders literally broke silver into pieces, weighed them, and used them as payment.
Before coins were standardized, people just carried around chunks of silver and hacked off pieces as needed—archaeologists find hoards of this 'hacksilber' and can actually tell how haggling worked 1,000 years ago by the size of the pieces.
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