Penny savings: taking the measure of money at the Ashmolean museum

A large model of an Oxford Crown, struck by Charles I during the English Civil War, on display in the Ashmolean museum’s coin collection. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

Prof Chris Howgego carefully cradles the medal minted for the coronation of the boy king Edward VI in 1547 as he mulls over the history of money from Babylon to bitcoin.

“Everything depends on confidence,” says the keeper of the Heberden coin room at the Ashmolean museum in Oxford. “Coins are just one form of money. Anything that can be used as payment is money.”