An individual may first trade away the good in his possession for some other commodity for which he has no particular use. But he may believe that it would be more readily accepted by a person who has a good he actually wants to acquire. He uses the commodity for which he has no direct use as a medium of exchange. In this sequence of transactions, commodity B has served as a medium of exchange for him. Menger went on to explain that, over time, transactors discover that certain commodities have qualities or marketable attributes that make them especially serviceable as media of exchange.
Some commodities are in greater general demand among a wide circle of potential transactors.
Some commodities are more readily transportable and more easily divisible into convenient amounts to reflect agreed-upon terms of exchange. Some are relatively more durable and scarce and difficult to reproduce. The commodities that possess the right combinations of these attributes and characteristics tend to become, over a long period of time, the most widely used and readily accepted media of exchange in an expanding arena of trade and commerce. Therefore, those commodities historically became the money-goods of the market because the very definition of a money is that commodity that is most widely used and generally accepted as a medium of exchange in a market. Money begins as one of the ordinary commodities of the market.