William Stanley Jevons, Money and the Mechanism for Exchange (1876) discusses many of the characteristics of money and exchange, including in chapter V, the properties which make money useful: utility and value, portability, indestructability, homogeneity, divisibility, stabilityof value, and cognizability. The merchandise stolen for use as "street coin" as described in the article meet most or all of these characteristics.
Jevons' work is recommended -- it's a classic study of the subject, but one which still carries strong weight. Rather more useful than many of the misdirected rantings of more recent vintage available online.