D&D 5E Coin sizes

[mlund]

The problem with those two coins as standards is that they're quite small.

The Solidus is small, and justifiably so. Gold is dense. Most people really have no idea how heavy gold is compared to copper and silver, or how heavy those are compared to, say, rocks. A pound of gold takes up little more than half the space of a golf ball.

When you imagine a fantasy treasure chest, you don't think of it as full of little dime-sized coins; it has coins with a bit more heft and substance. 9 gram coins are much better; a gold piece that looks like the US dollar coins is a more appealing imaginary treasure. It's not 1e's silly 45 gram standard, where the coins would come out massive.

The real problem is the Pirate Treasure Chest with Gold Doubloons. That's the cartoon image of the "gold coins in a treasure chest" mentioned above. Those darn things (doubloons) are 27 grams! They are 16 doubloons to a pound of gold, and they are much thinner than they appear in cartoons and movies. Even by 50 coins / lb. standards they are way off scale - worth more than 3GP on the 50-coins/pound scale.

A treasure chest filled with gold coins like you'd see in a "Pirates" movie is completely useless. Just going by basic footlocker dimensions and assuming loose coins take up around 75% of the volume of a container you're talking about 3,000 lbs of gold. The wood would break apart if you could actually lift it by the handles, which would require you to be some sort of magical giant! We're talking about lifting a classic Volkswagen Beetle with 4 adult passengers still inside. Not happening.

And then consider that silver takes up about twice as much space per pound. If people are carrying around fake-pirate-treasure sized Gold Pieces their Silver Pieces (that weigh the same on the D&D scale) are bigger than any conventional coin and the copper pieces might as well be small tea saucers.

Give me small, semi-realistic "Gold Crowns" the size of dimes any day.

Marty Lund

 

[aramis erak]

Since [MENTION=50304]mlund[/MENTION] mentioned them...
The traditional "Spanish Dollar" was about 27.5g of 0.93 fine silver. It was measured by weight, not volume, and was noted for being somewhat too soft, easily clipped or shaved. This is the coin that filled the real treasure chests... but even then, silver coins of that size are big... 2 to 3 mm thick, 35 to 40 mm diameter. BIG coins. Heavy. about 16.8 to the pound.

The first US dollar was modeled after the spanish 8 real milled dollar coin (dollar being a corruption of thaller)... the Flowing Hair Dollar was 0.9 Fine silver (90% silver, 10% copper), 416 grain (26.96 g), coin nominally 40mm in diameter. (It was often worn down on the edges). It was about 2.78 cc... and about 2.25 mm thick (noting the hollows on head and tail faces)

The doubloon was smaller, but about the same weight, and 22k gold.

Neither was a common circulation coin; they were typically coins used for commercial transactions, much like C-notes ($100) or thousand dollar notes.

Call them a 3SP and 3GP coin each, respectively. I should extend my table to include 2.5 and 3mm thick.

 

[mlund]

Neither was a common circulation coin; they were typically coins used for commercial transactions, much like C-notes ($100) or thousand dollar notes.

And that's the other point that gets missed if we slavishly adhere to the "Hollywood pirate chest" model of coinage - non-transaction denominations of money (ransoms, hordes, tribute, etc.) were not handled in precious metal coins in most eras (middle ages, classical, and ancient, anyway). They were handled typically in bar / brick form - measured in raw weight and purity. Effectively they were trading in pounds of gold. That's why you'll see mention of "talents" of gold in both the Iliad and the New Testament and tribute paid to the Huns in the later period is measured in raw pounds.

Marty Lund

 

[aramis erak]

And that's the other point that gets missed if we slavishly adhere to the "Hollywood pirate chest" model of coinage - non-transaction denominations of money (ransoms, hordes, tribute, etc.) were not handled in precious metal coins in most eras (middle ages, classical, and ancient, anyway). They were handled typically in bar / brick form - measured in raw weight and purity. Effectively they were trading in pounds of gold. That's why you'll see mention of "talents" of gold in both the Iliad and the New Testament and tribute paid to the Huns in the later period is measured in raw pounds.

Marty Lund

It varied by time and location.

Most of the silver moving around the Caribbean in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century was in coin form, not bullion bars. Entire traincars full of silver coin traversed the US right up to the 1930's. Medieval ransoms often were paid in weight, but usually weight in coin form... after all, a knights ransom was only £12 to £20 in the 11th century... when the £ was still a genuine troy pound of silver, or about 1 troy ounce of gold. As often as not, the equivalent value was paid in goods, as coin was in short supply, and bar stock even shorter supply. Now, around the med, yeah, bars were the major trade mode... but a 20 troy pound bar (about 9 kg) was pretty much a standard... a single bar being a greater baron's ransom (eg, a count/earl/margrave/duke).

I'm not certain about the orient, but I know that strings of coin were standard (and why they usually have a center punch on the coins), and were tokens as much as precious metal. Bars of gold were simply too valuable to pay most bills.

Then again, all the gold ever mined is only around 165,000,000kg. A bit under a 20.4m cube. roughly 4-5 elementary or high school classrooms. It would fit nicely into the great hall of any major castle in Europe.

 

[mlund]

It varied by time and location.

Most of the silver moving around the Caribbean in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century was in coin form, not bullion bars. Entire traincars full of silver coin traversed the US right up to the 1930's. Medieval ransoms often were paid in weight, but usually weight in coin form... after all, a knights ransom was only £12 to £20 in the 11th century...

That's kind of my point - the pirate chest full of coins model is not only misrepresented by Hollywood, it's also anachronistic for most fantasy settings leaning to the middle ages rather than the age of sail.

As to ransom, a knight's ransom is really still transactional. If we're talking treasure hordes we're leaning more towards "a king's ransom" or even a kingdom's ransom. What's more, consistent purity and size of coinage outside of the Solidus was a huge problem in the middle ages, which made the development of the Florin and the Grosso in the the Italian Republics a big deal. In Charlemagne's time standards in Francia were still being set to the Solidus, despite it being minted all the way on the other end of Europe by a foreign power.

Then again, all the gold ever mined is only around 165,000,000kg. A bit under a 20.4m cube. roughly 4-5 elementary or high school classrooms. It would fit nicely into the great hall of any major castle in Europe.

True, and I think that further emphasizes the absurdity of the D&D gold piece standard - especially at 50 go to the pound. Seriously - a single two-handed sword is worth a pound of Solid Gold? A suit of scale armor is 4 Pounds of Gold? That's bananas.

Marty Lund

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I like to balance my realism with fantasy expediency (and sticking to the book when I can).

Basically, I stick to the size and weight from the books. 3e PHB had a picture of a standard D&D coin labeled as actual size, and it was a little bit bigger than a US quarter--so that is what the designers were thinking of.

I just stick with them all weighing about the same (maybe thickness varies, maybe "its fantasy"). 1 silver piece is about equivalent to $1 USD. Then I add in copper farthings about the size of a penny or dime, and worth $0.25. There you go, that's my standard coinage.

Of course, I leave room for variant coinage based on different nations and stuff, and might inject that for color where appropriate. But as a standard rule I think it's simpler just to use the rules in the book for coinage most of the time.

One thing I do like to change up is to give various names to the different coin denominations, including default names (standard sp = "mark", standard gp = "crown", standard cp = "penny/pence"). I do not like to hear "silver pieces" at the table. It sounds too gamey for me.

 

[MechaPilot]

One thing I do like to change up is to give various names to the different coin denominations, including default names (standard sp = "mark", standard gp = "crown", standard cp = "penny/pence"). I do not like to hear "silver pieces" at the table. It sounds too gamey for me.

I agree. I also don't care for every nation just calling their currency "_____ pieces."

It takes a little bit of extra work on the part of the DM (and on the part of the players if they want to track the currencies separately), but I feel it's worth it.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Here's a thought. Perhaps in a D&D fantasy setting, "piece" has become a common unit of measurement meaning "A fiftieth piece of a pound". Most nations have one piece coins of gold, silver, and copper, but other denominations or weights would exist. so, when you find twenty gold pieces, you may actually have only found thirteen coins, but the weight is the same.

 

[aramis erak]

Just some food for thought - looked at a list of UK pre-decimal coins... because some people actually like LSD-money. My players never can seem to keep it straight. most of these have half-___ and two-___, some have quarter-___, a few have three-quarter-___ several have tree-___ and a few have four-___... but I've not noted those. Mites were a sixth of a farthing, never had a coin, but did have bookkeeping use.

Name of unit	d	S/d	£	Notion
farthing	0.25d			fourth penny
penny	1d			denarius
groat	4d			⅓S
shilling	12d	1/-		¹/₂₀ £
helm	18d	1/6
florin		24d	2/-		2s
leopard	36d	3/-		3s
noble (early)	40d	3/4		⅙ £
noble (late)	50d	4/2
crown	60d	5/-		¼ £
noble (early)	80d	6/8		⅓ £
angel	96d	8/-		4 florins
noble (late)	100d	8/4
mark	160d	13/4		⅔ £
sovereign	240d	20/-		1£ also laurel, unite, carolus (early), broad
Guinea	252d	21/-	1£ 1/-	pound and a shilling - tax related
carolus (late)	276d	23/-	1£ 3/-
rose ryal	360d	30/-	1£ 10/-	1½£

Notionally, the gold penny was worth 1½ shilling to 4 shillings at various points, nominally 2/- for much of the early run.coins worth more than 2/- tended to be gold.
For those who don't know, the x/y notation is Not a fraction, but shillings slash pence, so 1/6 is 1 shilling and 6 pence.
(early) indicates that a later period coin has the same name and a different value
(late) indicates a said later period coin.


Most of these are late renaissance or later...

Just putting it out there for an example set...

 

[Cristian Andreu]

I've been considering giving out loot using Rai Coins (giant stone disks used in, of all places, the tiny Micronesian islands of Yap. Value depends on size, age, and history of the coin, with the priciest ones measuring over 10 feet in radius, 600 years in age, and so heavy they require 20 men to move).