In primitive societies with a small range of goods, barter can work well enough, but as the range of goods expands, barter becomes increasingly inconvenient and costly. Several considerations have affected the evolution of commodity money itself--from cattle and grain toward shells and then bronze and ultimately to silver and gold.
Commodities are useful as a means of payment and store of value if they were are less bulky in relation to their value, more durable, more homogeneous, and more easily verified as to their worth than other commodities.