Coins of Many Colors

[Tortoise]

I need help coming up with the metals used in the various colored coins in my campaign. Recently I bought a bunch of aluminum Mardi Gras coins for props.

The colors range from the standard, silver, electrum, and gold, to blue, red, green, purple.

Any suggestions for what metals might help produce the blue, green, red, and purple colors when alloyed?

 

[FCWesel]

Uhm, not to not answer your question...but where did you buy these coins and how much were they? Thanks.

 

[Galethorn]

Blue--some kind of metal that doesn't exist in our universe, or an oxide coating.

Red--copper, unless you want really red red, in which case, some kind of metal that doesn't exist in our universe.

Green--there is an alloy of gold called 'green gold', but I haven't seen it in person or in a photo, so I couldn't say how green it is, exactly.

Purple--some kind of metal that doesn't exist in our universe, or an oxide coating.

 

[adwyn]

Any suggestions for what metals might help produce the blue, green, red, and purple colors when alloyed?

How about souls?

Copper (cu) can be used to produce metals with green and red tints, but these alloys wouldn't be good for coinage.

Cobalt for blue, but beyond the average medieval tech.

Take the 20's pulp writers technique and add -ite to the name of the various countries or locales to create your own metals.

 

[Tortoise]

Uhm, not to not answer your question...but where did you buy these coins and how much were they? Thanks.

http://www.mardigrasoutlet.com/default.asp

I bought the aluminum coins in a quantity of 1,000 which cost me about $88.00. I also bought some of the amulets and a brooch pin to use as props. The whole deal cost me $105 and change once shipping was added in. You can of course buy in lesser amounts (groupings of 25 coins), but I really wanted to have some serious coinage to toss around for the players to mess with.

The site also sells plastic coins much cheaper, but are out of stock and I like the aluminum for the variety of colors, shapes, sizes, and the variety of markings that can easily represent different kingdoms and time periods.

 

[Prothall]

I've got an eastern continent in my game the players have never visited, but that they run into coinage from frequently - the stuff's made of gemstones. If you've ordered colored aluminium coins, though, the suggestions above are about it.