Fantasy World Coinage

[Aldarion]

Interesting...now I have to go look it up. Was it completely a base-10 system?

I don't know. All I had been able to find was that 1 gold Florint was 100 silver Denarii, and that it remained in place until 1521.

It seems that sub-denar coins were called garas and obulus.

The wealth of King Matthias - Hungarian-Ottoman Wars

The wealth of King Matthias One may ask how was King Matthias able to finance his standing army and the rest of his soldiers whose numbers altogether could reach 164,000 men at times? Without crippling the economy? Moreover, during his 32-year-reign the number of newly built splendid late-Gothic...

www.hungarianottomanwars.com

You have some information on the coins here:

Search the coin catalogue – Numista

Coin, banknote and exonumia catalogue, online collection management, swaps, forum, and more.

en.numista.com

Anyway, for my own world, I decided to use a mix of Diocletianic and Byzantine systems:

Coinage utilizes trimetallic standard; gold is worth 14 times as much as silver and 2 000 times as much as bronze. Currency of the Empire is as follows:

• Aureus: gold, 9 g, 30 mm diameter, denarius value 2 000
• Solidus: gold, 4,5 g, 21 mm diameter, denarius value 1 000
• Tremissis: gold, 2,25 g, 15 mm diameter, denarius value 500
• Argenteus: silver, 6,3 g, 24 mm diameter, denarius value 100
• Siliqua: silver, 3,15 g, 17 mm diameter, denarius value 50
• Denarius: bronze, 9 g, 28 mm diameter, denarius value 1
• As: bronze, 4,5 g, 15 mm diameter, denarius value 0,5

 

[Mad Swede]

Guinea = worth 1 pound and 1 shilling
Pound = worth 20 shillings
Shilling = worth 12 pennies
Six-pence = Six pennies
Two-Pence (Tuppence) = two pennies
Penny = A penny
Half-penny = 1/2 penny
Farthing = 1/4 penny

What’s so complicated about this system? I mean sure working out that there is in fact 240 pennies in a pound rather than the modern day 100 would have meant you’d have to be better at mental math, but still. Plus setting is also something worth considering whether you use this coinage or not - farthings would have been used at like a market stall or something whereas guineas would have been like the modern day equivalent of a £50 note. They’d hardly ever get used. Probably only used for high purchase items or in banks. We still have two pence pieces…and pennies.

OK Finchbearer , you've forgotten a few coins:

Groat = Four pennies
Florin = Two shillings (one tenth of a pound!)
Thruppenny bit = three pennies
Tanner = six pennies
Crown = five shillings
Half-crown = two shillings six pennies
Gold Sovereign = one pound

As a general comment, the British pre-decimal currency system is an example of a Carolingean monetary system.

 

[Finchbearer]

OK Finchbearer , you've forgotten a few coins:

Groat = Four pennies
Florin = Two shillings (one tenth of a pound!)
Thruppenny bit = three pennies
Tanner = six pennies
Crown = five shillings
Half-crown = two shillings six pennies
Gold Sovereign = one pound

As a general comment, the British pre-decimal currency system is an example of a Carolingean monetary system.

That was Michael’s list!

I will go back to it’s just pounds, shillings and pence, (with denominations in rather convoluted coinage). Thank goodness for decimalisation!

 

[_Michael_]

I am using a bit of a cheat: the Sintari navy is akin to the Nauts in Greedfall and are sort of the international shippers empire. Anything that moves across water, they tend to have a hand in--they're sort of the Dutch East Indies company. They don't prevent others from using non-Sintari ships for cargo, but most people acknowledge that Sintari ships are faster and their organization more reliable. They use secret technologies for their speed and durability, as well as a magical armillary in mercury that gives them pinpoint accuracy for figuring their latitude and longitude, even during storms.

Their presence on the world stage for the last 800 years or so has facilitated the spread of the High Council's standards for shipping, weights and measures, and coinage ratios and values as they have the capability of faster communication and faster distribution of data through magical means. They're basically pulling a Rothschild's move (like how they took over the Bank of England), but have no interest in one-world government or enriching themselves through fiat currency manipulation. In fact, I'm tempted to add a bit to the High Council where they outlawed fiat currency entirely because of its propensity for abuse and currency manipulation. If they can use magical methods to communicate across vast distances, akin to how the Rothschilds used the telegraph to get ahead of war tidings and perform a coup de grace on the Bank of England, they would be aware of the existence of fiat currencies and their usurious tendencies.

The High Council is not trying to be a bank, they're trying to maintain civilizational stability to permit nations to govern themselves as they see fit, while preventing the rise of powerful war mages raising vast armies of dracolich-lead skeletons and zombies or resurrecting ancient technologies from the Age of Dreams capable of laying waste to entire cities. They're not a political body in any sense except perhaps in policing magic users to keep one from going off to become a warlord and use forbidden magics, like stuff that has the ability to threaten the fabric of reality, while seeking to preserve knowledge and lore. No gating in Baatezu armies or opening a portal to Githyanki monasteries in the Astral. The High Council has become a sort of trusted name in certain areas like magical research and scientific discovery. Picture the Aes Sedai and the White Tower of Tar Valon, minus their political skullduggery and manipulation.

Between the High Council and the Sintari navy, the spread of standards in coinage weights and values would accelerate, bringing more stable economies and less instances of coinage fraud by theives' guilds and the like. Yes, you would still have the occasional kingdom with a shoddy monarch who tries to debase the currency for as long as possible, causing international tension. But the High Council wouldn't go to war over it, they'd simply publish it for all to see and the Sintari Navy, knowing the kingdom's coinage was debased, would refuse to do business with them. That's a lot of international pressure to play nice.

These are all just fill-ins, really. Like, we're filling the reasons why the way things are the way they are after the fact. I have a vision of how I want the system to look like in the modern year of 3142, CE. Filling in all the details of why and figuring out how to make it work is the fun part. For me, it's been educational because I'm having fun learning about the history of coinage along the way.

Question: If scientists have known about specific gravity since the 4th century BC, why has no one attempted to make a coinage scale to measure the specific gravity of the metals in single-metal coins like gold and silver? Or have they and I haven't come across it yet? Seems that using specific gravity would be a more fool-proof method of detecting forgeries and debased coins.

 

[pmmg]

I dont think anyone knew how to measure it in the 4th century bc. Seems like 1000 or so years to early
To me.

 

[_Michael_]

Yeah, Bing is stupid. lmao Still, though, specific gravity of elements was a known factor by the medieval era, right? I mean, if some old Greek dude could come up with the Antikythera device, why couldn't someone come up with a scale based on specific gravities?

 

[pmmg]

What does bing have to do with it?

I dont really get the direction with this. Are you wondering why I didn't measure lead, as an example, by its gravitational effect on other objects? And asking why earlier civilizations did not do this?

My answer is, they didn't know how. Maybe the Greeks could have done something, but they didn't, or it didn't catch on.


Why would people do this? I mean, if I am a shop owner, I dont really care if the coin is perfect, I just care if I can spend it like it is. If its good enough to fool people, then its currency. Let the scientist dude worry about if its perfect.

I got appearance, size, weight, and density....now you want me to measure its gravity too? Ummmm... no thanks. Who is gonna explain that to the masses anyway?

That thing they found, far as i know, is one of a kind. No one really knows where it came from, or who made it.

 

[_Michael_]

It's not my intention to have money changers just running around doing whatever. They must all be licensed and rigorously vetted. What I was imagining was some bean counters at the end of the coinage cycle back at the mint or at local exchanges checking old coins coming in for alterations. I figured a scale measuring specific gravity would be immediately useful in that it can detect obvious forgeries if the coin's density doesn't match the known quantity for the coin's metal content. Shaved coins would be removed from circulation, as would fraudulent ones. Having such scales and coin checks at a local level (say, in big cities or towns, and up) would discourage debasement as the thieves would be caught before too much damage was done.

Also, having the scale keepers be totally impartial and outside the normal political structure by making them essentially diplomats not answerable to local authorities would mean they'd be responsible to the High Council itself (or their own guild), which would itself be very vested in ensuring accuracy and accountability. If the High Council doesn't enforce such accuracy and quality in their coinage, the Sintari navy would stop doing business with them and the international shipping lanes would shut down. Any corruption or debasement would be very publicly prosecuted and the criminals would be made examples of ("Oy! Feed 'em to the dragons!" the people shout).

I was sort of seeing it as, you come into the moneychanger's office, give him or her your coins, he goes in the back and checks them on the specific gravity scale to ensure you're not turning over fakes or debased/shaved coins (picking coins at random if there's hundreds or thousands of them to check) and then he comes out a little while later (while you sit and sip coffee or whatever) with your wax-sealed letter certifying you have money of account on hand to use with local shopkeepers and vendors, or give you local currency or whatever your preferred medium of exchange is.

 

[pmmg]

So...I can see why some may have an interest is such coins, but the human nature side of this tells me this is system will have only marginal results.

If I sell my goods and accept coins, and then go to a money changer, like above, and he finds half my coins are fraudulent, what happens next? Does he go in the back and replace them with good coins? Or am I just out half my coins, and possibly arrested? Cause...no way I am going to him, if that's how it is.

I'd rather take my chances that the next guy will accept the coins, and move on.


Just an anecdotal story. I once sold something on eBay in good faith. I received the money through paypal, and mailed off the item. (I forget the amount, maybe $100 or so). Well...as it turns out, the purchaser used a stolen credit card to do their part of the transaction, and the credit card owner complained. Fair enough right? Well.... in response to this, Paypal came into my account and took the money back.

Who was the big loser in this? I was. I did nothing wrong. but I lost my product and got no money to show for it.

I was not the one who used a stolen card. I was not the one who let my card be stolen. I was not the one who accepted it for the transaction, but I was the made to pay.

So guess what happened to paypal? They don't get to hold my money ever again. That's human nature.

 

[_Michael_]

Wow, website just completely deleted my edit. Wonderful.

I suggest that a mass arcane mark enchantment could be used in place of scales--arcane marks are generally cantrips and can be altered to change shape and color. This would allow for arcane marks to vary according to region and enchanter at the mint, so that the origin of any coin could be traced for investigatory purposes. Moreover, a simple arcane mark would be invisible except to other magic users employing spells such as Detect Magic, Read Magic, Truesight, etc. Thus, most people would be unaware of it, and it likely would not be publicized. It could be refined even further so that small alterations to the coin (such as shaving) that didn't effect the ore value by more than 5-10% (in other words, a tiny amount shaved off the side) would not immediately cause the coin to be pulled from circulation--there'd be a threshold before the coin is pulled. An arcane mark could alter color slightly by a shade or two to reveal the alteration, versus the color going from purple to orange for a complete debasement.

Best of all, the spell could not be simply duplicated and recast as it would not have the magical signature of the mint's enchanter, and any faked magical aura (through something like, Nystul's Magical Aura) would be immediately detectable as a fraud.

As for exchanging coins, I imagine there'd be a reward for turning in coin debasers, and money changers would likely issue ore value of coins for damaged coins turned in, record your name in a dusty ledger, and move on to the next customer. Keep popping up with debased coins, however, and eventually, your name appears too many times in the ledger and you get the Red Legion and a pissed off Magi showing up at your door to figure out where you got the coins from. This would be rare, though--you'd have to be bringing in a lot of debased coins for someone to say, "Okay, this guy is obviously getting bad coins from somewhere." If they find your coins are completely fraudulent and you weren't actually running a scam (probably determined using a quick Detect Lies spell by the money changer), they'd likely start an investigation into their origin, mark your name in a ledger in case they needed to ask you further questions, and you'd go your way. I think arrest would be reserved for the actual people they catch trying to commit fraud, and not just some Joey Leg o' Mutton trying to change his money in for some fennigs to take his kids to the circus.

I mean, it's no different than if we get stuck with fake money now. I popped three fake $20 bills working as a clerk that had to be turned over to the Secret Service, so it happens. I don't really see, as a DM, making that a common occurence unless it's part of a plot in the campaign just to keep things moving.

 

[pmmg]

I mean, it's no different than if we get stuck with fake money now. I popped three fake $20 bills working as a clerk that had to be turned over to the Secret Service, so it happens. I don't really see, as a DM, making that a common occurence unless it's part of a plot in the campaign just to keep things moving.

This part is true. If you don't make it part of the game, then it dont really matter if the system works or not. Just that its there adding backdrop.

 

[_Michael_]

This part is true. If you don't make it part of the game, then it dont really matter if the system works or not. Just that its there adding backdrop.

Yeah, I look it as a rarely-used plot device. If you want to make an adventure involving debased coinage, great! But just sticking your players with garbage coinage because "realism," is a terrible idea. lol It's likely it happens, and it's also likely the thieves' guilds in the area are aware of it and either are behind it, or are getting just as pissed off because whoever is doing it is going to bring down a High Council Magi and Red Legion soldiers, and then the theives' guild will have to shut down entirely for the duration of their investigation to keep from being discovered.