History of wallets

Have you ever heard a proverb that says  "necessity is the mother of invention"? Of course, you did. this proverb explains what drives humans to invent, create, and discover. It simply means that the main driving force for all our inventions is "the need".

When the world's first coins appeared around 600 B.C., in modern-day Turkey, the need for something to carry these coins appeared with it. People in that time needed a way to carry around their small day-to-day stuff along with their coins and they started making leather purses with a drawstring closure and they were attaching them to the hips or belts.

 In 1690, paper money entered the scene and the coin purse was not so useful anymore but instead, the flat case wallet was created.  Mainly, cow or horse leather was used in the making of the early wallets, that included paper money and printed calling card. These small cards are what we call today Business cards or visiting cards and they were used for many social reasons back then.

During that period of time, people continued to attaching their wallets to their belts, and it was considered "uncivilized" to carry your wallet in your pocket. Interestingly, People considered big fat wallets as a sign of richness, and "the bigger the wallet, the bigger the man" was used to describe this belief.

Through the 1800s, the use of wallets got more and more popular among different classes of society, and during WWII, wallets became surprisingly more used and many soldier's wallets that have been found were containing dog tags and photos of loved ones.

After the war, the financial boom and the appearance of credit cards led gave the wallets more importance and it became not only a need but also a fashion must. At the beginning of the 1950s wallets became a critical fashion item for both men and women and the modern wallet appeared in a variety of designs, colors, and exotic materials. 

As technology has evolved, so has the modern wallet. Humans started to use technology in everything in our modern life even our wallets have gone through a steady transformation; they became thinner and more practical but most importantly they became safer.