Electrum Pieces!!!

[Umbran]

What I've always wondered was why mithral wasn't minted into coins. It's as rare as gold, more expensive, doesn't tarnish and is shinier than silver; it would seem to meet all the criteria for being considered a noble metal.

Ah, but the stuff is simply far too useful to use it as coinage. Gold and silver are rare and pretty, but have almost no practical use in a society that doesn't use electricity. Without other application, you mght as well make coins and decoration from it. In a society that needs tough and light arms and armor, you can't go wasting mithril in coins and jewelry.

 

[painandgreed]

IMC, all platinium pieces were created in distant ages by the dwarves. They also did made mithril and admantine pieces because what is normally used for coinage was just one of the more common ways of weighing it. Dwarves use "coinage" and knew exactly how many "coins" it took to make any particular item. Even in D&D, the coins are more a common weight and quality of metal than currency which has worth other than what it is made of.

BTW, I sat down and crunched nubmers one day and figured that with standard weight, a gold peice was about the size of a penny and silver piece about the size of a quarter. Electrum, being a mix of both then, might be about the size of a nickel?

 

[howandwhy99]

In game, you use an adamantine press, that deals with the hardness issue. Or course that raises a whole new issue of making things out of adamantine...

What the heck is Adamantine anyways? An alloy? Refined Adamantite by Azer in a volcano?

Our campaign doesn't mint platinum. Plates are called such as they could only be melted down to form.

 

[Rothe]

I still use electrum. It is more a de-based form of gold IMC rather than the inability to separate silver and gold. I always like the idea since reading about how debasement of curreny was a common way to raise extra money or basically counterfiet gold coins.

 

[Mercule]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum

 

[Tuzenbach]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum

Damn fine link, Mercule! A Wikipedia entry that references D&D? Priceless!

 

[Tewligan]

Why is it not in 3E? The coinage system was revamped for simplicity. Platinum used to be worth 5 gp.

(Blink, blink) USED to be worth 5 gp? Huh - I never caught the fact that it had changed! You'd think I would have noticed that after so many years of 3e. What's it worth now, incidentally?

 

[Mercule]

10 gp. 3E is purely metric money.

100 cp
10 sp
1 gp
.1 pp

 

[ghul]

Heh. Where I come from, it goes like this:

40 copper commons = 10 silver nobles = 2 electrum luckies = 1 gold orb
+++++++
1 gold orb + 1 electrum lucky = 1 platinum plate.

++++++++++++++
For small change:
250 iron drabs = 50 brass bits = 5 bronze zees = 1 copper common

--Ghul

 

[Glyfair]

10 gp. 3E is purely metric money.

100 cp
10 sp
1 gp
.1 pp

Which is explains why the electrum was dropped. It doesn't fit in neatly.

Personally, I prefer this. While I don't mind bits and pieces added to help add a difference between the real world and the fantasy world, I don't like it when it directly affects my ease of use in the game. I really don't feel the need to have to remember how many golds in a platinum, silvers in a gold, etc. to buy things for my character. While someone that plays core D&D a lot can keep it straight, it gets harder to keep track of when you play in multiple games, or in games where the DM feels the need to muck with the monetary system.