It may “make sense”, but it’s also an ahistorical just-so story.

If you want a more accurate description, I recommend the first half of David Graeber’s book Debt: The First 5000 Years, also mentioned by another top-level comment.

For me, mises.org has the same credibility in economics as the DailyCaller or PoliticaUsa have in politics.

Same here. I used to read articles from mises.org, but they seem to have some fishy characters as contributors and authors.

Note, however, that Menger is not a columnist or blogger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Menger http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/374958/Carl-Menger

It's a great read that actually gets you to understand how money came to be, in a theoretical sense. The book the other poster suggests is more about the history of money and monetary phenomena.