- [[The Civilizations of Africa by Christopher Ehret#ch08 The Early Atlantic Age 1450-1640]] - [[greenSumptuaryLawsPrecolonial2019#p11]] - this [[rAskHistorians|AskHistorians]] thread has an absolute wealth of information about [how cowries were harvested](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6hjgjc/problems_with_shell_money_eg_cowries/) , including that individual shells weren't used as money, the _strings_ of them were, and it's important to note that "inflation was controlled because the expeditions to collect the shell had alternate economic uses for their time." ... "You could collect shells yourself to increase your wealth but it would take a lot of work and some investment of goods. You would then need to have them transformed into money. The financial system using shell money does have controls built into it to reduce inflation."