Shaving coins

[Zappo]

So I have a player who wants to start filing coins to obtain gold dust, melt it, and increase the number of coins in his possession. By the way, what's the term for this action?

Now, there are a couple of things I'm aware of. First, merchants probably weigh the gold received in any transaction, which would defeat this trick as far as they are concerned. Second, the faces and border of a coin are, what's the word, pressed?, specifically to prevent this, so the character is going to produce a lot of suspect-looking flat gold discs unless he makes a Forgery check or something.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of the topic ends here. What other obstacles can one encounter when doing this? What tools are needed?

How many coins can be produced this way starting from a fixed number of coins? I guess this probably depends on how good a forger the character is, which leads to the mechanical question - how would you handle this rulewise?

 

[Whisper72]

I do not know of any special terms, AFAIK it is called 'shaving' coins. In the real world it was a big problem in the old days. The minting process did not allow for the rims to be ribbed or inscribed, so this practice was indeed performed.

Several side notes however:

- indeed many merchants would weigh coins, and there were often SEVERE penalties if cought for doign this
- the winnings are slim at best. If you shave off too much, it will be easily noticable by the naked eye that the coin is simply too small. This means you could shave off maybe 5% of the weight max? So you'd get an extra coin for every 20 you have. It is simply not very economical to go through all the trouble at some point (especially if the rims are ribbed or otherwise marked)

Hope that helps a bit

 

[nerfherder]

there were often SEVERE penalties if cought for doign this

In the middle ages 'clipping' of the coinage - that is cutting bits off the edge of silver or gold coins to melt down, was a common practice, and counterfeiters risked draconian punishments. In Germany the penalty was boiling in oil, in France breaking on the wheel, and in Russia molten lead was poured down their throats. In 1587 a thief from Knutsford, called Harvey, was hanged and quartered for the crime of clipping, and his body parts displayed on the four gates of Chester.

- the winnings are slim at best. If you shave off too much, it will be easily noticable by the naked eye that the coin is simply too small. This means you could shave off maybe 5% of the weight max? So you'd get an extra coin for every 20 you have. It is simply not very economical to go through all the trouble at some point (especially if the rims are ribbed or otherwise marked)

By the late 17th century the coinage in England was in a dreadful state. Clipped money was the rule, and a silver piece of full weight was a rarity. They were hoarded in expectation of appreciating in value, melted down for their intrinsic worth or even exported to France or Holland. Tests of silver coins by the Exchequer in 1695 revealed losses of between 40% and 50% in their weight.

Information from http://users.eggconnect.net/michaelgreatorex/money.htm

Cheers,
Liam

 

[LazerPointer]

wow, nerfherder, that's pretty cool. now to think about how I could use this in my campaign....

 

[Zappo]

This is great information! Thanks! I think that the penalties alone are almost enough for him to give up, though.

Edit: what about the time? How long does it approximately take to do this thing? I'm trying to figure out some good game mechanics.

 

[Gilladian]

I would think to do this that he would have to have the forgery skill to do the clipping in a way that would be undetectable, and a metalworking skill of some sort to know what tools, etc... to use. I'd say he might only need one rank, just for basic familiarity.

Then I'd allow him to make a forgery check vs. a spot check on the part of the merchant. forgery+metalworking vs spot+appraisal might be a good mechanic. This gives the merchant some way of improving his odds of recognizing the forgery. I'd give the merchant bonuses for circumstance if he uses scales or other equipment to aid his detection, but I'd give the PC bonuses if clipping is as common as implied earlier, simply because the merchant might "pass" coins that appeared to be old clip jobs, or only slightly clipped, rather than anger a customer who might not have done the clippping.

This is all off the top of my head, hope it helps.

 

[philreed]

Ah, the things that get lost when so many products are out there. We wrote clipped coins into Treasures of Freeport.

"Coin clipping requires some basic tools including a way to melt the metal down, time, and a supply of coins; about 30 coins per hour can be clipped. A coin cannot be clipped to less than 3/4 of its size before merchants will refuse to take it. For every four coins that are clipped, an amount of metal equal to one coin is gained in this manner; thus someone clipping 80 coins would be able to gain about enough metal to equal 20 additional coins. Passing clipped coins is a matter of succeeding at either a Bluff or Diplomacy check against the person accepting the coins. If you win the check the coins are accepted, if you lose the check, the coins are rejected. You gain a bonus to the check if you mix in the clipped coins with regular coins; the bonus is +1 every increase of the ratio starting with +1 for a 1:1 ratio. For instance, if you try to pass 10 clipped coins along with 20 normal coins then you have a 2:1 ratio and gain a +2 on the check."

That was an excellent product that, unfortunately, did not do as well as expected.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2762

 

[Tetsubo]

That is why our "modern" coins have "milled" edges. Those little ridges. Of course our modern money isn't made of precious metal anymore...

 

[thalmin]

Even after the clipping process, he would only have the gold dust. If he knew what he was doing he could melt it down, but how is he going to make them into new coins? Make his own die? Counterfeit the coins?

 

[alsih2o]

Even after the clipping process, he would only have the gold dust. If he knew what he was doing he could melt it down, but how is he going to make them into new coins? Make his own die? Counterfeit the coins?

Yeah, this is a lot easier than you think.