Abstract: This article explores the extent to which gold jewelry, an object type conventionally looked on as a means of display, should also be seen as a type of money. Drawing on historical evidence and ethnographic research, the analysis considers the ways in which two examples—the Renaissance money chain and the modern jewelry collection—exhibit characteristics fundamental to money: liquidity, partibility, and recursive divisibility. As a result, this study proposes that gold jewelry can best be described as a type of para-money. The article concludes that due to its ambiguous state, gold jewelry is able to act as a mediator in social situations where exchanges of money proper are considered unacceptable, and that this is an important yet under-acknowledged aspect of its social identity.

中文翻译：

---

黄金首饰是钱吗？

摘要：本文探讨了黄金首饰（一种传统上被视为展示手段的物品类型）在多大程度上也应被视为一种货币。利用历史证据和人种学研究，分析考虑了两个例子——文艺复兴时期的钱链和现代珠宝收藏——展示货币基本特征的方式：流动性、可分性和递归可分性。因此，这项研究提出，黄金首饰可以最好地描述为一种超货币。文章的结论是，由于其模棱两可的状态，黄金首饰能够在认为适当的货币交换被认为是不可接受的社会情况下充当调解人，这是其社会身份的一个重要但未被充分承认的方面。