Just *how* big is that gold piece again?
- Thread starter LazarusLong42
- Start date
Coinage
Its simple than change all GP values to SP and SP to CP and toss CP. Then make GPs something rare. It sounds like the perfect place for your own rules or the DMs. But I like the the way things are now in general. I am not expecting reality in a fantasy game....
Altalazar said:
Its simple than change all GP values to SP and SP to CP and toss CP. Then make GPs something rare. It sounds like the perfect place for your own rules or the DMs. But I like the the way things are now in general. I am not expecting reality in a fantasy game....
Last edited:
Hardhead
Explorer
dulsin said:
Unfortuanately, the story is also untrue.
Bit, which ultimately comes from the Old English bita, originally meant a morsel of food. From there it went on to denote any small thing, particularly a fraction of a larger whole. By 1683 in the American colonies, bit had come to be the American name for the Spanish/Mexican real ("real" is the name of the coin). A real was one eighth of a peso. The peso was a common form of currency in the colonies, so much so that pesos were commonly used as dollar coins. The real/bit coins represented twelve and half cents (1/8 of a dollar), hence two bits equaled 25 cents.
Shout out to Wordorigins.org, where I originally saw this.
Last edited:
AFGNCAAP
First Post
I'm a bit bothered about the size of the "standard" coinage for D&D, especially at the 50 coins = 1 pound exchange. I'm thinking of using a 500 coins = 1 pound exchange as a possibility (BTW, what would the coin dimensions be for that?).
In the interest of "real" coinage, here's a few things to ponder:
Debasement: Gold & silver, in their pure form, are way too soft for coins. They'll most likely be alloys for durability's sake. However, if a coin gets too debased (basically falling under 75% of the "main/name" metal in the alloy), then the coin's not going to have that much value at all (and may be harder to detect counterfeits).
Make a new "penny": Use another metal (such as zinc, tin, lead, iron, aluminum, etc.) as the lowest-value coin in the game, and bump copper to the status of a silver piece, silver to a gold, etc. Gold will be rarer, & platinum even more so.
Some other metals used for coinage:
Zinc
Tin
Lead
Iron
Nickel (found in deposits of platinum & palladium)
Aluminum (the mining/refinement process for this metal may not be feasible for a medieval culture to use this)
Alloys, alloys, alloys: Along the ideas of debasement, as well as a new "penny," but certain metal-mixtures may work for common currency, lower-value currency, etc.
Billon: a copper-silver alloy in which there is a higher content of copper than silver.
Red gold: gold alloyed with copper
Electrum: the famous gold & silver alloy
Whitegold: gold alloyed with either platinum or palladium (IIRC, IRL palladium is worth more than gold, but less than platinum)
Brass, Bronze: common copper alloys
Pewter: a tin & lead alloy
There are many more alloys, but those are a few that I know of offhand.
IMHO, I'd think that materials that may be needed for tools & weapons (like iron/steel) wouldn't be the best metal for coins, since there'd be temptation to melt down the coins for other uses (unless that's a cool idea for you, but that brings in counterfeiting issues). Metals that can severely corrode (like iron & tin) wouldn't be good choices for coinage either.
Here's a possible coinage system, still using a sort of decimal system for the values:
Pewter piece: $0.001
Zinc piece: $0.01
Brass piece: $0.05
Nickel piece: $0.10
Copper piece: $0.25
Billon piece: $1
Silver piece: $5
Redgold piece: $10
Electrum piece: $20
Palladium piece: $50
Whitegold piece: $100
Gold piece: $200
Platinum piece: $500
Of course, this is WAY too many coins for one system--but you can sort of get an idea.
FYI, here's some info I found on values for precious metals & the like:
1 ounce Gold = 72.3589 ounces Silver
1 ounce Gold = 2.06027 ounces Palladium
1 ounce Platinum = 2.01751 ounces Gold
This site provides conversion info. Click on "Money," then select the denominations/values of your choice.
However, this is all going on the idea that the rarity of these metals in the specific fantasy setting matches the levels of rarity for the metals on Earth. Gold and silver could be more common in those worlds, & thus their values as coins reflect this.
In the interest of "real" coinage, here's a few things to ponder:
Debasement: Gold & silver, in their pure form, are way too soft for coins. They'll most likely be alloys for durability's sake. However, if a coin gets too debased (basically falling under 75% of the "main/name" metal in the alloy), then the coin's not going to have that much value at all (and may be harder to detect counterfeits).
Make a new "penny": Use another metal (such as zinc, tin, lead, iron, aluminum, etc.) as the lowest-value coin in the game, and bump copper to the status of a silver piece, silver to a gold, etc. Gold will be rarer, & platinum even more so.
Some other metals used for coinage:
Zinc
Tin
Lead
Iron
Nickel (found in deposits of platinum & palladium)
Aluminum (the mining/refinement process for this metal may not be feasible for a medieval culture to use this)
Alloys, alloys, alloys: Along the ideas of debasement, as well as a new "penny," but certain metal-mixtures may work for common currency, lower-value currency, etc.
Billon: a copper-silver alloy in which there is a higher content of copper than silver.
Red gold: gold alloyed with copper
Electrum: the famous gold & silver alloy
Whitegold: gold alloyed with either platinum or palladium (IIRC, IRL palladium is worth more than gold, but less than platinum)
Brass, Bronze: common copper alloys
Pewter: a tin & lead alloy
There are many more alloys, but those are a few that I know of offhand.
IMHO, I'd think that materials that may be needed for tools & weapons (like iron/steel) wouldn't be the best metal for coins, since there'd be temptation to melt down the coins for other uses (unless that's a cool idea for you, but that brings in counterfeiting issues). Metals that can severely corrode (like iron & tin) wouldn't be good choices for coinage either.
Here's a possible coinage system, still using a sort of decimal system for the values:
Pewter piece: $0.001
Zinc piece: $0.01
Brass piece: $0.05
Nickel piece: $0.10
Copper piece: $0.25
Billon piece: $1
Silver piece: $5
Redgold piece: $10
Electrum piece: $20
Palladium piece: $50
Whitegold piece: $100
Gold piece: $200
Platinum piece: $500
Of course, this is WAY too many coins for one system--but you can sort of get an idea.
FYI, here's some info I found on values for precious metals & the like:
1 ounce Gold = 72.3589 ounces Silver
1 ounce Gold = 2.06027 ounces Palladium
1 ounce Platinum = 2.01751 ounces Gold
This site provides conversion info. Click on "Money," then select the denominations/values of your choice.
However, this is all going on the idea that the rarity of these metals in the specific fantasy setting matches the levels of rarity for the metals on Earth. Gold and silver could be more common in those worlds, & thus their values as coins reflect this.
Particle_Man
Explorer
Just as D&D doesn't worry about physics too much, it doesn't worry about chemistry too much either.
The way I see it, in D&D worlds copper, silver, gold and platinum have exactly the same density. Thus coins of equal size weigh the same (1 / 50th of a pound) regardless of which of the four metals they are composed of.
That is just the way it is.
Oh, and gunpowder doesn't work either, barring variant rules.
The way I see it, in D&D worlds copper, silver, gold and platinum have exactly the same density. Thus coins of equal size weigh the same (1 / 50th of a pound) regardless of which of the four metals they are composed of.
That is just the way it is.
Oh, and gunpowder doesn't work either, barring variant rules.
If you realy want to blow peoples minds .... use the old english monitary system.
Pre-decimalisation, the Pound was divided into 240 pennies rather than 100, though it was rarely expressed in this way. Rather it was expressed in terms of Pounds, Shillings and Pence, where:
£1 = 20 shillings.
1 shilling = 12 pence.
Thus: £1 = 240 pence
and a penny was further subdivided at various times, though these divisions vanished as inflation made them irrelevant:
1 penny = 2 halfpennies and (earlier) 4 farthings.
The standard way of writing shillings and pence is
5/6 for 5 shillings & sixpence
5/- for 5 shillings only, with the dash to stand for zero pennies.
As the symbol, £, for the pound is derived from the first letter of the Latin word for pound, the libra, so the old abbreviation for the penny, d, was derived from the Roman denarius, and the abbreviation for the shilling, s, from the Roman solidus. The shilling was also denoted by the slash symbol, also called a solidus for this reason. The English penny was derived from a small silver coin minted by Charlemagne which was in general circulation in Europe during the middle ages. The weight of this coin was originally 1/240th of a troy pound, a weight known as a pennyweight - around 1.555 grams.
The pre-decimalisation coins with exact decimal equivalent values continued in use after 1971 alongside the new coins, albeit with new names, (eg the shilling became the 5p coin). Some, such as the 6d, were withdrawn after a short time but others remained legal tender until they were replaced by smaller coins in the early 1990s. Pre-decimalisation shillings were used as 5ps, with many people calling the new 5p coin a shilling, since it remained 1/20 of a pound, but was now worth 5p instead of 12d.
Slang
Some pre-decimalisation coins became commonly known by slang terms. Perhaps the most well known being bob for a shilling, and quid for a pound. A silver threepence was a joey, a sixpence was a tanner and a half crown was a half dollar. Quid remains as popular slang for one or more pounds to this day in Britain
And we can't forget Crowns, Gold sovereigns, Thruppence and Groats!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_coinage#Pre-decimal_system
Pre-decimalisation, the Pound was divided into 240 pennies rather than 100, though it was rarely expressed in this way. Rather it was expressed in terms of Pounds, Shillings and Pence, where:
£1 = 20 shillings.
1 shilling = 12 pence.
Thus: £1 = 240 pence
and a penny was further subdivided at various times, though these divisions vanished as inflation made them irrelevant:
1 penny = 2 halfpennies and (earlier) 4 farthings.
The standard way of writing shillings and pence is
5/6 for 5 shillings & sixpence
5/- for 5 shillings only, with the dash to stand for zero pennies.
As the symbol, £, for the pound is derived from the first letter of the Latin word for pound, the libra, so the old abbreviation for the penny, d, was derived from the Roman denarius, and the abbreviation for the shilling, s, from the Roman solidus. The shilling was also denoted by the slash symbol, also called a solidus for this reason. The English penny was derived from a small silver coin minted by Charlemagne which was in general circulation in Europe during the middle ages. The weight of this coin was originally 1/240th of a troy pound, a weight known as a pennyweight - around 1.555 grams.
The pre-decimalisation coins with exact decimal equivalent values continued in use after 1971 alongside the new coins, albeit with new names, (eg the shilling became the 5p coin). Some, such as the 6d, were withdrawn after a short time but others remained legal tender until they were replaced by smaller coins in the early 1990s. Pre-decimalisation shillings were used as 5ps, with many people calling the new 5p coin a shilling, since it remained 1/20 of a pound, but was now worth 5p instead of 12d.
Slang
Some pre-decimalisation coins became commonly known by slang terms. Perhaps the most well known being bob for a shilling, and quid for a pound. A silver threepence was a joey, a sixpence was a tanner and a half crown was a half dollar. Quid remains as popular slang for one or more pounds to this day in Britain
And we can't forget Crowns, Gold sovereigns, Thruppence and Groats!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_coinage#Pre-decimal_system
Last edited:
LazarusLong42
First Post
Huh. I'd no idea that my ramblings at 2 in the morning when I was procrastinating from grading chemistry papers would lead to such interesting discussion. Lots of good stuff here. I should ramble more often.
Altalazar said:
And there's been some criticism of Quicksilver about how draggy it gets with such stuff.
There's a reason we don't have stuff like this in D&D. It is boring. A glance into the complexities of ancient times may be academically interesting once. However, how would you like to do it every time the character buys something? Want a new dagger? Crap, it'll take 15 minutes of haggling over the blasted coinage!
There is no action, no drama, no character development in dealing with details like that. Just buy the bloody thing, check off the value, and get on with somehting that makes the story interesting
Altamont Ravenard
Explorer
AFGNCAAP said:
Well if at 50 coins a pound, the coin in question would have to have a volume of 0.47 cubic centimeters (~0.03 cubic inches), then at 500 coins a pound, the coin would have to have a volume of 0.047 cubic centimeters, and thus, if it has a diameter of 1 cm (which is a little smaller than a dime), it would have to have a thickness of about half a millimeter, which is not much. The coins would get destroyed immediately.
AR
Similar Threads
