Really need help with my money system

efreysson said:

That will (hopefully) justify their use in the wild land, but I'm still having trouble with just how valuable the coin should be. And this seems like a real problem, since prices have to make sense when compared to one another.
Like, if a warm meal costs two dims, then how much for a sword? Or a donkey, or a new pair of boots, or a room for the night, or an oil lantern, or salary for a laborer . . .

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Unless you're buying an individual item, just hand over a bag of coins...

And not to forget, the value of an item may be different depending on where you're buying or selling it, or how badly someone wants it.

In the wilds I'd guess that barter would still be heavily used. Coins might be used in taverns and the like, but in markets...

Those questions depend on how rare items are, if sheep are common and swords are rare many sheep could be swapped for a sword. A Dim(?) might only buy a tankard of ale but could also purchase a chicken.

I would suggest researching how long different items take to make and use that list, along with what is rare or common, in making up a pricelist.

(Also look at this list: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/medievalprices.html )

A little complicated, but I hope this helps

Research a currency from a society that resembles yours...like Medieval Europe, where power was decentralized, and a king, a town, a guild or a local squire might all have had the right and the ability to coin money.

In Medieval Europe, there were two kinds of money - money of account, and money of exchange.
Money of Exchange (MoE) was the actual coins used by people to buy goods and services.
Money of Account (MoA) was a sort of idealized, theoretical money used for book-keeping purposes.

MoA was a record of value based on the Imperial Roman rarity/value ratio of 1/20/12 - one unit of gold is worth 20 units of silver; one unit of silver is worth twelve units of copper. In France, the units were the gold livre, which was worth twenty silver sous, each of which was worth twelve copper deniers.

This was important because every coin was worth the metal that was believed to be in it. If the king of France minted a coin...let's call it a "douzaine"...and claimed that it contained a sou of silver (or a mix of metals worth a sou), then the dixaine would buy a sou's worth of goods and services...four kilos of bread, say, or the work of a skilled craftsman for a quarter of the day.

So the douzaine would buy a sou of goods for as long as people BELIEVED it contained a sou of value. The insignia of the king, guild or government stamped on the coin was the guarantee of that organization, that mint, that the coin contained the value it was supposed to. But once the coins had been in circulation for a while, and alchemists, goldsmiths and merchants had examined them, it might become clear that the coins actually contained much less than a sou. So the douzaine issued by Louis le Gros might be worth much less than the shilling issued by Henry the Bald...even though both were officially worth a sou.

In other words...
Your Dim is worth the amount of gold or silver or copper that people believe it contains. And this value is an indicator not of the power of the country that issues the coin, but of the honesty of the Mint of that country, and the failure of counterfeiters to come up with believable fakes.

Meanwhile, there would probably be dozens of other coins available, and money changers would know the value of those coins compared to the value of Dims, and all of those values would be based on the amounts of gold, silver, and copper those coins were known to contain.

Fin.

Role-playing games have numerous reference works that you can use, most of them thoroughly researched. I'd look for Iron Crown Enterprises' "...and a 10' Pole" as the best example of this kind of book. It has items logged by historical age, with prices. It also discusses the effect of travel on the price of consumer goods, ancient trade, and other topics relevant to your need.

astonwest said:

And not to forget, the value of an item may be different depending on where you're buying or selling it, or how badly someone wants it.

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Yes, if I'm the only one within ten days' journey selling a particular product, I can charge as much as I like, up to the point that my customers choose to do without. Exactly where that point is depends on how badly they need my product.

Alternatively, if I'm the only one within ten days' journey buying a particular product, then I can pay as little as I like, down to the point where people choose not to grow that crop or whatever. And that depends on how badly they need the money to buy other things.

In other words, a wild, untamed land wouldn't have set prices that are the same everywhere.

Check out Michael Swanwick's story at the front of the latest issue of Asimov's for a crash course in comparative economics. I can't remember the story's name, but Rosamund the spacesuit is the narrator.

Old England

Consider late Saxon England. There was one coin, the (silver) penning, re-coined every three years at a 15% charge to help protect against clipping, and to make the king's treasury a profit. All large cities had at least one coiner.

240 made a pound (troy weight, I believe), while a scilling was generally 12 penninges. This site gives some comparative values of goods.
http://www.regia.org/costs.htm

Some other coins might have circulated, and it is possible that the Danelaw worked things somewhat differently. Many fees and taxes were paid in kind, even much later, and great lords would travel from place to place to maintain their households on local produce.

Earlier times had different coinages, such as the sceat, whence we get the saying, to get off scot-free = pay no fee or fine.

You could always try going one step farther back, and have hack silver and a set of scales - that way, any coin from anywhere could be used as long as it was the right weight. As could your rings or other jewellery.

Damn' useful link!

Kenny said:

In the wilds I'd guess that barter would still be heavily used. Coins might be used in taverns and the like, but in markets...

Those questions depend on how rare items are, if sheep are common and swords are rare many sheep could be swapped for a sword. A Dim(?) might only buy a tankard of ale but could also purchase a chicken.

I would suggest researching how long different items take to make and use that list, along with what is rare or common, in making up a pricelist.

(Also look at this list: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/medievalprices.html )

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Thanks!

And note the pound-shilling-pence ratio...

efreysson said:

My WIP fantasy novel, and most of the ones I'm planning to write, take place in a wild, untamed land with no central government. Instead, power is spread out among various city-states, clan systems, warlike mountain tribes, and small, loosely connected village communities. And yet I need a universal coin that anyone can use to buy anything almost anywhere.

My main idea is that a nation that borders the wild land is an economic superpower, and whose coin (Dims) has been spread around by merchants, and become viable currency in about half the continent. That will (hopefully) justify their use in the wild land, but I'm still having trouble with just how valuable the coin should be. And this seems like a real problem, since prices have to make sense when compared to one another.
Like, if a warm meal costs two dims, then how much for a sword? Or a donkey, or a new pair of boots, or a room for the night, or an oil lantern, or salary for a laborer . . .

Well, you see where I'm going with this. For the record, I mean for a lower-value metal coin to form the basis, with a silver coin being worth several of those, and a gold coin worth several more.

I'll really appreciate it if anyone can help me figure this out, since I can't just keep skirting past just how much people are paying for goods and services.

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Every city state would have its own type of coin, and in all likelihood, every RULER would change that coin when he came to power. If the coins are made out of a substance that everyone values, it won't matter who's face is on the side--merchants will bite the coin and accept it all the same.

Try playing "Age of Empires" for a few hours.

A few interesting results of a precious-metal currency:

The early US silver dollar, based on the Spanish dollar, was often physically cut into four or eight pieces to make change. A fourth of a dollar was a quarter; an eighth was a "bit" - hence the phrase "two bits" for 25 cents.

The ridges that you find on the edges of modern quarters were originally created to prevent "clipping" - that is, shaving the edges of gold or silver coins and recasting the shavings as new coins. If the edge of the coin is ridged (or has text on it), clipping is obvious. (Since modern currency has nothing to do with gold or silver, the ridges are just decorative.) Some say that the ridges ("milling") were an invention of Isaac Newton's.

In England in the 1250s (or thereabouts) a Long Cross Penny was brought in, the edges of the cross went right up to the edge of the coin. Making it harder to trim.

Not so sure about the Long Cross penny, but the Short Cross (1180-1247) could be cut into 2 or 4 bits, for a halfpenny or farthing.

Sometimes coins could be debased and in the late 1100s because debasing became so common in English coins the King invited all of the moniers to his court and as a Christmas present cut off one hand and one testicle...

Just a few more useless, and maybe interesting, facts about English money.