[Mkguild] A question of money exchange

[Ryx]

Well, each culture or kingdom may come up with its own trade valuation system - i.e. coins or something the equivalent thereof.
A chain is perfectly viable, except for the fact that is a PITA to remove and add links.  If there's a gap in the link to hook them together there is always the risk of the whole thing collapsing.  


You're better off with beads on a thong/lanyard, even if they are *big* beads.  Native americans used such as a trade system in the past, though the value of the item was often up to the judgment of the individual with whom they're being traded.
One guy might be willing to trade a goat for an abalone bead, where the other guy doesn't much want abalone so is willing to part with a chicken for it.

So, let's say each link/bead is a set weight (rather than size), let's just take ounce as a standard measurement, or grams, either way.  Since I understand ounce I'll work with that:  Each gold coin is roughly 1" in diameter and 2mm thick, with huge variances under the ancient coinmaking processes.  So let's estimate each one to be 1/4 to 1/3 ounce.  A few of these will add up quickly to some considerable eight around the neck.  Silver and copper are also very heavy malleable metals... and these are being worn around the neck...
A commoner might not have a problem with ten copper and a couple silver... but what about the guy buying for the Keep's larder?  He'll about lynch himself with money if he's not careful.

So, beads will still have to be weighed, and there's no really convenient way to determine the purity of a given metal - in particular gold which is often adulterated to increase it's weight without adding more gold.  It's a complex system, but there's more than enough room in the setting to handle different monetary exchange systems.




On Wednesday, February 26, 2014 2:17 AM, Alex Green <alexsurikat at gmail.com> wrote:
 
Alright, I've done the calculations.  
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>First off, the assumptions.  I am assuming that; the value of gold is 15x the value of silver; the value of silver is 300x the value of copper; gold is worth $1350 per troy ounce; a Garrett is worth $300; each link conforms to the dimensions stated by Anthony in his first email; percentages are by weight; every link is worth just slightly more the the component metals so that it wouldn't be profitable to melt them down.  
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>I started off with the most valuable link first because there is only so much gold that can fit in the specified dimensions.  I chose to make this link out of 18 Karat gold; more specifically, it's 75% gold and 25% silver.  It weighs exactly 0.866 troy ounces giving it a value of just slightly less than $900.  This means one of these links is worth 3 Garretts.  
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>The next link is 1/10th the value of the previous link meaning it's roughly equal to $90 or 3 Silver Moons.  It is made from 95% silver and 5% gold, and it weighs exactly 0.583 troy ounces.  
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>Again, as specified, the next most valuable link is 1/10th the value of the previous.  Worth $9, it's composed of 20% silver and 80% copper by weight.  It weighs exactly 0.490 troy ounces.  
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>The last link is worth $0.90.  Twenty of these will net you three Bronze Crescents.  It is compose of 1.75% silver and 98.25% copper and weighs precisely 0.480 troy ounces.  
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>If these are to be grouped into chains of 100 then it would be important to keep track of the weight of a chain.  A chain of 18 Karat links would weigh 5.938 pounds and be worth $90,000 or 300 Garretts.  A chain of the 95% silver links would weigh 3.998 pounds and be worth $9,000.  A chain of the 20% silver links would weigh 3.36 pounds and be worth $900. And finally, a chain of the 1.75% silver links would weigh 3.291 lbs and be worth $90.  
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>I'll have to deal with Metamor's currency composition later, but this should be a workable solution for the currency Anthony specified.  
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>-AlexSurikat
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