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Broadway is full of musicals inspired by real people. Alexander Hamilton, Eva Perón, and Fanny Brice have all proved that history can make great theater. But for every smash hit based on a famous figure, there are plenty of shows that fail to find an audience. Some of these productions had acclaimed composers, Tony-winning actors, huge budgets, or historical subjects that seemed tailor-made for the stage. It didn’t matter.

Money works because people agree that it has value. Usually, governments and central banks make that agreement easier by printing notes, minting coins, and regulating the financial system. But when conventional money is unavailable, restricted, distrusted, or simply inconvenient, people have repeatedly found substitutes. Prisoners have paid for haircuts with fish and ramen noodles. Prisoners of war built functioning economies around cigarettes and even created their own paper currency.

The world’s oceans are littered with the wrecks of sunken ships, some of which are still stuffed with the cargo they were carrying and the personal effects of passengers and crew. But while anyone diving to explore a shipwreck is likely to find coins and dishware, plenty of more unusual things have also been brought back to the surface.