The Currency in your World

[Helleaven]

What kind of currencies are you using in your worlds?

What is the name of your chief monetary unit?

I am going to use the classical bronze, silver and gold system. 40 bronze equals 1 silver and 100 silver equals 1 gold. Then I thought about the name for this currencies. I thought that I was going to use some words from the language I'm creating. Then I've came up with another idea.

What do you feel about this naming below:

40 bronze leaf = 1 silver branch

100 silver branch = 1 golden tree

It makes sense to me and I actually like the metaphor in the naming. What do you think?

 

[Devor]

In my work in progress, I'll figure out when it becomes necessary.

In another story, I just used silver coins, where a "penny" was the price of a good sheep and something like 200 pennies were worth a bigger silver coin. But that's what was accurate for the timeperiod my setting was placed in.

I'm under the impression that Copper/Bronze didn't see much use in the medieval world, at least in places which had access to gold and silver. IRL, the more metals you use for money, the faster your money inflates. You would want the rate of gold/silver/bronze mining to match fairly closely to the population trends.

 

[JonSnow]

I also use copper/silver/gold coin system. I don't go into specifics as to how much certain items cost, or how many coppers make a silver, etc. But it is made known the order of value is copper-> silver-> gold. It is a good, reliable system

With currency, as well as character names and cities, I'm always worried that I am using a name that has been used before, though I don't think we can help it at this point, given how much fantasy is out there. I actually had the name "Rand" as one of my main characters before I read The Wheel of Time. Obviously I had to change it. But I have been gun-shy ever since.

Anyway, the name of my world is Irgoth, so in the interest of simplicity, I use "goth" coins as the currency. Gothcoppers, Gothsilvers, Gothgolds.

 

[Telcontar]

Helleaven: precious metals are tried and true, of course, and your names are fine - IF there is a reason for them. Why are they called leaf, branch, and tree? Is this imagery important to the history, mythology, or religion of some powerful society?

Furthermore, remember that most nations had their own currency, and while there were often shared elements - the use of gold and silver being a famous example - they differed in size, commonality, purity, name, conversion rates, etc.

 

[Forsta-Phoenix]

I remember reading somewhere, and it is probably false, that the lowest denomination of Roman currency was usually enough to buy a meal. Regardless of how truthful that bit of information is most currencies have a lowest "useful" denomination, i.e. a base to build upon, if you're going with trees as the naming convention then maybe bronze coins could be called "roots", silver "branches" and gold "leaves" or "flowers" (seeing as how gold is often the showiest of the rare metals). Not trying to tell you what to call things in your world or anything, just the first thing that popped into my head when I read your post!

 

[Queshire]

I haven't given this much thought until reading this thread actually, but here's what I have so far;

-Most countries / cultures have their own currency with varying names and values. These common currencies are used by the citizens for day to day stuff, just like in real life.

-There's also a standardized currency often used in international matters. People like Nobles, Merchants, or Adventurers that don't want to rely on potentially fluctuating currnecy use it. This currency is refered to as Shards. They are litterally shards of various magical materials. How much an indivdual shard is worth depends on the material and how much it weighs. The value of these shards come from their rarity and scarcity. Shards have to either be scavenged from magitech wonders left over from the Age of Legends or mined from naturally magically dense areas. Both of which are rather dangerous jobs. While these materials can be used in spells and magitech machines, and that was their first use, much of the knowledge of utilizing them in that manner has been lost.

-The reason magical materials are used instead of just normal precious materials is because normal materials can be alchemized and thus mass produced. While it's easy to tell alchemized materials from natural ones if you know what to look for (alchemized materials lack any form of flaws or impurity, they're TOO perfect) the risk is too much for a standardized international currency.

-Even a shard with a relatively low value is still worth a lot to commoners, a piece of celestial bronze the size of an average rock is enough to buy dinner, rent a room for the night, and pay for breakfast at an average inn with enough left over to pay the "adventurer's insurance," reimbursing the inn owner for the common chaos that tends to follow adventurers around ie: bar brawls, guards bursting in to arrest the adventurers in the middle of the night, demon assassins, etc and so on.

 

[ThinkerX]

For the main nation of the main world, I go with a loose varient of the old Roman system (because that is where these people originally came from).

The main denomination or coin is the silver Dinar or Denarius and is how costs are almost always figured. Most ordinary sorts make around 10 - 20 dinar a day. For really poor sorts, it would be just a couple dinar, for the wealthier types, up to around 100 dinar a day.


Below the Dinar are iron, brass, or copper bits, checking in at around 1/10th - 1/5th the value of the Dinar (not strictly accurate historically speaking, but an attempt on my part to avoid confusing the reader over much). A 'bit' will usually get you a cup of ale or a bowl of gruel. A couple of them will get you a dirt cheap bunk for the night. Pretty much its 'pocket change'.

Gold Aures, worth ten Dinar (again not historically accurate) exist, but are used only for really major transactions - like buying a carriage or ship.

-=-=-=-=-=-

My other world is not all that metal rich, but does have lots of coastlines, so it is on a copper or brass standard (nation depending) rather than silver. The bottom level of 'coins' here are sea shells, which again, count as 'pocket change'.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

What kind of currencies are you using in your worlds?

What is the name of your chief monetary unit?

I am going to use the classical bronze, silver and gold system. 40 bronze equals 1 silver and 100 silver equals 1 gold. Then I thought about the name for this currencies. I thought that I was going to use some words from the language I'm creating. Then I've came up with another idea.

What do you feel about this naming below:

40 bronze leaf = 1 silver branch

100 silver branch = 1 golden tree

It makes sense to me and I actually like the metaphor in the naming. What do you think?

I'm using a generic copper/silver/gold system. Gold coins are sometimes referred to as "crowns" and silver coins as "eagles" (owing to the seal of the royal house on the back, which is an eagle). Copper coins are just coppers.

I've done a lot of world-building, but for some reason I never really got to the point of making any elaborate system of coinage.

 

[Saigonnus]

My coinage is fairly basic where it's used, much of the smaller villages and the like work more with a barter system. Copper, Silver, Gold coins generally differ in weight and value with the kingdoms they are used in. The kingdom in my WIP has a trade value of 30 copper to a silver and 15 silver to a gold crowns, beyond that gems or precious stones are used as currency.

Prices are fairly cheap for most things, at 5 copper a night at a cheap inn, 1 for a pint of local ale/beer, 2 for local wine. A simple meal (usually soup or stew with bread) is 2 also and 3 or 4 for a more extravagant meal (like meat and potatoes with bread). Basically trained horses are usually around 5 silver, three times that for a warhorse. I think any story should have at least a basic, functioning economy to add that depth to the story.

 

[Sheilawisz]

The money is something that is not often mentioned in Fantasy literature, or at least, what the money and the economy are like in a Fantasy world is not explained in detail... That does not surprise me really, because real-world economy is something that most people consider complicated and boring =)

In my Fantasy worlds money is rarely mentioned: My stories are about Mages, and they do not really need money because they can make anything they want appear out of nowhere- The common people are said to use silver coins and diamonds as money, and the Mages sometimes use magically-made silver to buy things for fun when they visit the cities.

They appreciate plum juice made with natural plums and wine made with natural grapes!!

This is a fun thread, Helleaven =)

 

[Caged Maiden]

To me, the copper silver gold method just brings up D&D thoughts. So I used the late Renaissance money of Queen Elizabeth's time. Each of my kingdoms mints its own coins, and there is corresponding values between kingdoms for the sake of commerce, and I sort of assigned a dollar amount to each coin by today's standards to keep with consistency. So a $100 value coin will buy you a pearl necklace, a fine pair of shoes or a yearling pig, that sort of thing.

Here's my break down:

Rheinguard:

Sovereign: (1 pound Elizabethan) $200 current, a gold coin with the king's face, and the preferred method for banking.

Crown: (5 shillings Elizabethan) $50 current, a silver coin featuring the royal arms.

Shilling (1 shilling Elizabethan) $10 current, a bronze coin I never detailed.

Groat: (5 pence Elizabethan) $5 current, copper coin.

Penny: (1 penny Elizabethan) $1 current, copper coin.


Brazelton:

Lorraine: (1/2 pound Elizabethan) $100 current, a silver coin with the mayor's wife's face, also called pretty ladies.

Royle: (5 shillings Elizabethan) $50 current, a silver coin featuring the mayor's face.

Half Royle: (2 and 5 Elizabethan) $25 current, a bronze coin I never detailed.

Gill: (1 shilling Elizabethan) $10 current, a bronze coin I never detailed.

Half Gill: (5 pence Elizabethan) $5 current, copper coin.


Adelmoor:

Crown: (5 shillings Elizabethan) $50 current, a silver coin with their royal arms.

Shilling: (1 shilling Elizabethan) $10 current, a bronze coin.

Groat: (5 pence Elizabethan) $5 current, a copper coin.

Penny: (1 penny Elizabethan) $1 current, a copper coin.


The thing with money, is that a coin is a coin, so if people travel, they can spend their money wherever they are, so consistency was a factor when I decided on this system. Money isn't a big part of my world, but i liked to assign current day values so I knew what one coin could buy. I hope this gives you some ideas, it's really to do research on money used in Europe's past, and there was loads of it floating around in foreign lands, so I assume (without doing a lot of research) that people accepted foreign currency by weight and value. So anyways, for my relatively unresearched money system, this is what I came up with.

 

[Helleaven]

I see that everyone has a different approach upon this subject. Some are simple, some are complicated enough to compare with today's minor economical system. (I'm not much of an economist, actually I hated that lectures in university.) It's really a complicated matter but I guess we have to simplify it in order to keep readers' interest in the story.

I don't know how it is in your countries, but we still have some gold coins which you can buy from jewellery shops. Those are called Republic Gold and they have three different variations (quarter gold coin, half gold coin, full gold coin) They are not being used in daily trade, only given as gifts in weddings or when someone gives birth to a baby. So when I look it that way and twist it a bit, I can see that gold coins are still in use. So why not the silver and copper/bronze?

There are some important and valuable informations which all of you have mentioned. Such as the difference of the materials from country to country. I thank you all for your contribution.

As for my naming, it is completely a metaphorical thing.

A tree has many branches on it, and even more leaves. A branch has many leaves on it. Just like the money. A (gold) tree embodies lots of (silver) branches, and even more (bronze/copper) leaves. A branch embodies lots of leaves. Just like one gold tree can also be seen as tons of broze leaves or many silver branches.

I hope that I've explained it well enough.

 

[Mindfire]

I like your system. I really only have 3 countries that have standardized currencies, and each of them uses a different valuable material for their coinage, with the currency being related to that country somehow, either to the geographic region, or their national crest. Mavaria's currency is gold palms- meaning the tree- because they're a desert nation. Elyssia uses ivory crowns. And Beorgia's currency is silver scales- as in fish scales. Coin usage is more popular in Beorgia and Elyssia because they're the more industrialized countries. In Mavaria however, bartering is still the standard between clans and families, with coins being used mostly in cities and trading posts in order to standardize the value of certain goods. There are no standardized economic systems outside these three countries, as all of my other people-groups don't have a lifestyle that really calls for "money" as a concept. As for international trading, bartering is used, but there is something of an exchange rate where a certain weight of gold = a certain weight of silver = a certain weight of ivory.

 

[ScipioSmith]

The Empire uses the copper, silver, gold system (copper pennies, silver shillings, silver centuries, golden triumphs and gold eternals) but because there is far more silver in the Empire than gold the highest practical denomination is the Century, with triumphs and eternals being much rarer; in fact almost all of the Eternals- the gold content of which has never been debased in Imperial history- being held by the treasury to back the economy.

I'm still having a little trouble with what these coins are worth in practical terms though: it is an immutable point in backstory that the price of a fit, strong slave boy of 13 years is equivalent to the cost of a modest house, but exactly what that price is is something I can't seem to settle on.

 

[Queshire]

I've been tweaking my setting and thusly I need to tweak my currency. My new setting is basically Fallout with magic and less grimdark.

Instead of Kingdoms, the largest settlement are well fortified City States. Not big enough to have their own currency, and unlikely to use worthless pre-apocalypse artifacts as currency. I never did get why they used bottlecaps as money in Fallout :/ I mean in the first game they were appearently backed by the water merchants, but still, that's pretty stupid.

Hrm, anyways, too that end, I'm keeping the Shards, but instead of having them as simple shiny rocks they're basically magical batteries. They power magical tools, serve as ammo for magical guns, and when ground up serve as an important ingrident in magical potions.

I'm considering including more rare elemental shards which have unique properties but wouldn't be used as currency, so for instance a fire shard would serve as a heater in winter or a water shard would purify water, but I'm worried that might overcomplicate things, would it be better to just have normal machines run by regular shards?

I'm also considering renaming shards to something like jewels, gems, or maybe something punny like jouwels (from joules, a unit of energy, which, as magical batteries, they are, and jewels, which they look like)

What do you guys think? I woulda asked this in my other thread, but as it's about currency I figured here would be better.

 

[Fnord]

It really comes down to something being a store of value, easily transported, easily measurable, and sufficiently "scarce" enough not to disrupt the price system. But even precious metals have their pitfalls; after all it's not the hunks of metal you want, but the stuff hunks of metal buy. The Spanish Empire learned that the hard way as they plundered the New World of gold while the British actually left with useful resources like timber. You can't build ships out of gold or eat it, and the Spanish saw little more than price inflation for all their efforts.

But you honestly don't have to be too complicated with it. Interesting names and traits are always a treat though; such as the Dragonlance novels having steel coinage because after the Cataclysm people had a real use for steel as an object rather than gold or silver. A currency simply is only as useful as long as other people value it. It'd be interesting to read a story where someone who hoarded tons of gold (maybe a dragon!) suddenly discovered after a turn of events (massive economic disruption, a meteor made of solid gold crashing into the world, etc) that their entire hoard was completely worthless.

Let aluminum be a lesson: in Roman times it was more valuable than gold (and well into the last couple hundred years which is why the top of the Washington Monument is tipped with aluminum) and now we wrap our leftovers in it. Electrolysis changed everything!

 

[shangrila]

I've called mine "crowns", with half crowns and quart crowns being the only others. I was using gold and silver, but I'm thinking of swapping it to something else. Perhaps copper.

 

[SeverinR]

I use gold, silver and copper, as nicknames for money, easier for the lay person to understand, even if one country might not except the others money.
I have not named the coins, but in all systems gold would be the primary coin.

Thinking one might be crown(probably the evil empire-power hungry king), eagle for the good nation, Maybe talons for a third?

Just designed my money, did each of the three.

Tried to upload, unacceptable format x3. Gave up.

 

[BWFoster78]

I too am using a simple copper/silver/gold system. However, I need to have a handle on the relationship between them. I like 10 silvers to a gold. Not quite as sure on how many copper to a silver; I'd like to go with 10, but not sure that works.

Also, I think I'd like a coin that represented a fraction of a copper. I was thinking that 5 coppers for dinner and breakfast, as share of a room, and a bath is a fair price. Then I had the guy tip the barmaid. In that case, a copper is way too much.

Questions:

1. Do factors of ten work for converting copper to silver to gold? If not, any recommendations?

2. What's a good term for a fraction of a copper?

Thanks.

 

[Devor]

I don't think there's anything wrong with a standard 100 copper, 10 silver, 1 gold currency. It's not really accurate for the history - to be honest it reminds me of D&D - but in a fantasy world there's nothing wrong with simple and relatable. But to me, it's like using orcs and elves - something I've also defended - in that you're trading depth for simplicity, an exchange that sometimes has value.