Fantasy Currency and Measurement Systems

the squeaky one said:
Ah, I knew they were to do with American currency. It's just that I've no idea how much they're worth. I guess in the same way that some Americans (and others) don't know what a quid, pony or monkey is.

Or, by now, some British remember what half a crown, a tanner or a bob were. Or, by now a florin or a thu'penny piece.

I enjoy dropping in a groat or half a dollar from time to time; but I specified out an inter-asteroid freighter in cubits and spans, once.

A nickel (presumably because it was pressed in that metal; odd considering how many people are allergic to it) is, if my memory is still functional, worth five USA cents, and is bigger than the ten cent piece, or "dime, on which one can stop, which was once silver.

The quarter, bigger than either and also theoretically silver, is obviously twenty five cents, unless it comes from a piece of eight (or "real de a ocho", the first American dollars) in which case it is two bits – you make change with a hacksaw.

None of them are worth much any more, and the Swiss franc, about the only currency worth saving as its value's going up faster than inflation, has no fun terms for smaller denominations. No sense of humour when it comes to money, the Swiss.

And at university I could convert MKS (that scientists were by then totally installed in but engineers, on the whole, preferred to avoid) into FFFS; Furlongs, fortnights, Fahrenheit and stones without the aid of electronics. Reading out the density of platinum in stones per cubic furlong took some time without exponents; I will now admit the system was not the most practical.
 
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Exactly. I include myself in your "(and others)".
A book I read recently, The Name of the Wind (incredible book, highly recommended), has several different forms of currency, as the protagonist travels to different kingdoms and introduces us to the reality that money is not the same all over the world. They use both traditional and extremely original names for the coins - copper pennies, iron pennies, other types of pennies, and the very original silver talent. I love that name, I cannot get over it. A talent. It fits like a glove. A custom made glove. Worth a silver talent, at least.


Now you're talking... I'd get slapped if I mentioned the author, but I really liked a drab, and a shim - both words that are gray, dull, but so expressive when Kvothe is searching through his purse for some iron to test the scrael...
 
Whyever would a mention of the author earn a slapping?
I agree, they are very informative.

chris - I was forced to convert to furlongs and fortnights without a number-crunching machine in my physics class. Not fond memories.
 
So I should just call my coins pennies, nickles, dimes, quarters, and dollars?

No, because those coins suggest the USA, which didn't exist in medieval times. However, florins and shillings did exist in the medieval times, and most fantasy is set in some sort of mock-medieval world. Hence florins and shillings could work in a fantasy setting without jarring the reader excessively. As to whether you wanted to use them is up to you, so the suggestion is not absurd.

The only thing that would have to be changed, I suspect, are months and days of the week, which specifically reference real-world legends. Though I've got to say I always feel there's something slightly daft about peasants talking about last Frydae night. Maybe the answer is just not to mention the day names as much as possible: Titus Groan does this*.

* "the eighth day of the eighth month", IIRC.
 
Why go decimal on coinage?

Go to the tried and tested British Imperial system.

240 pennies in a pound and a menagerie of coins inbetween so exotic that it makes the hunt for the higgs boson and super-symmetric particles look like an in-depth examination of tax records.

Mind you, for shear quantum coinage perhaps look up the old scottish coinage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_coinage 5.Lists of Scottish coins.

It's not clear to me why all these coins have the relationships that they do. But c'mon - wouldn't you love a gold unicorn in your pocket?
 
when I did world building I skipped the need for coinage by setting up a barter system. I suspect that I will still have to deal with these issues though because who caries change for a chicken in their pocket?
and even if it never shows up in the writing I think (personal opinion here though, purely based on my enjoyment of world building and of reading stories in indepthly build worlds) that the writer should know the ins and outs of the world. you know just in case your put on the spot at a Q&A by a fan who really really wants to know how to make change in your world and what the conversion rate of dollars to doughnuts is.
 
I completely agree with you there, hope. And maybe you should have one type of coin used for such instances? It could be a coin that is an egg. Here's what I mean: a coin that is worth exactly as much as one egg. So instead of carrying around such things as eggs to trade, you could trade your hat and two egg-coins for the vest you've been eying. Each coin is essentially just a potential egg, or something worth the same. So it's a coin, but it's also an egg! You could call it a cegg!!
 
lol
I will want to create some system for one of the cultures. Something I'm rolling around in my brain at the moment, actually. Honor plays a large part in the development of both of my cultures, one is "litterate" and the other is not, or less so.
What I was thinking was going with an overly complex system that never gets referenced if I can help it, because the idea is too simple.
Word, as currency. "my word is my bond" kind of mentality. you say I owe you a chicken for re-thatching your roof, then I owe you a chicken. You know I owe you, I know I owe you. You know what I owe, I know what I owe. end of system.
people who need reminders might use feathers from different parts of different birds sewn into a kind of ledger, cutting them off when they have been paid. That could develop into a kind of fashion statement as society progresses, so then people begin wearing their ledgers on their shirt fronts, and it becomes a statis symbol kind of thing. lots of cut off feathers = someone who payes their debts. lots of intact feathers = someone you cant trust to pay you back. small feathers for small debts (can I borrow a cup of sugar) large feathers for large debts (i'm almost thinking bird of prey tail feathers for "you saved my life" kind of things.)
accruing debt would be a big deal because most people just trade apples for wood or corn for beads what ever it is. item for item straight across.

so for me 'currency' becomes a cultural subtext that unless someone in my story goes into debt will never be written about, but I need to know because it will shape how I dress members of that culture.
what sort of person would wear lots of feathers proudly? what sort of misconceptions would that give some one from the other culture (they have not had contact with each other for ages at the beginning of my story) who meets them? things I as the author need to know, or at least ask myself.
 
I would have thought that someone who couldn't be trusted to pay their debts would not go in for the fashion statement side of it. I doubt they'd want to advertise. Then there is the sort of person who aims for complete self sufficiency and wishes to avoid any debt, repayable or not. I'm sure there is almost always someone like that in a cultural group.
 
that is the cultural group actually. but the other one, the Tame Humans. the one's with feathers are the Wild Humans. yes I know I need better names for them, but Tame Humans was better then Fairy Pets That Got Set Loose, and Wild Humans harkens back to the C.S. Lewis quote that got me thinking.
 
If you are doing your world building to the nth degree - and you appear to be doing this Aaron! - then what currency/coinage that will be about will then be directly related to the economic status of your kingdoms/republics/states.

Unless you have a state-backed banking system then you really can't have any paper currency. You need a lender of last resort for such a system - and to be strong enough to convince people that this switching their gold for paper made sense.

Most normal people, the poor (the bulk), would rarely see something as big as even a single pound (or whatever the major unit of currency is) - usually only needing copper coinage, mere pennies for their daily needs, if they even spent coin at all. Taxes were paid in kind, via goods, food grown or service. Amongst the poor I would assume that bartering would be very prominent.

If you are amongst the (much smaller numbers of) upper classes then you'd probably be spending some gold and silver, but remember that a lot of goods and services are being given to you in lieu of payment. So many nobles were asset rich - owned lots of land, could produce lots of food, could call upon lots of men for miltary service - but were cash poor as their assets just didn't produce money. Again it was only the introduction of banks - so that nobles could effectively mortgage their assets to get ready cash where this relationship with their lands started to break down.

Also note that it wasn't really the actual currency of a gold piece that was important - it did have some bearing on spending internally - but it was an international standard because it did not wear away and could be easily recast into anything else. So the weight of the metal in the coinage would be a more important consideration (and how pure it was etc...)

Military campaigns were one way of getting your hands on gold and precious metals - essentially the hundred years war was basically a continued plunder of French assets by English raiders, and probably why they continued for so long! (Ok might also have to do with a claim to the throne also, but he normally had many enthusiastic followers eager for a spot of rape and pillage...)

This sort of thinking works up till about the industrial revolution - where capitalism/consumerism/regular wages for regular service starts to take off. But remember by this stage the financial and banking systems of the states that are doing all these things are extremely well developed by then - in fact was completely necessary for the industrial revolution.

I could go on and discuss the strange effects caused by the disparity between the value of the currency and the value of the medium (gold/silver) and what that could do. But maybe that's a step too far!
 
No, I am not using paper currency - coins only. The one-ris coin is of course rarely seen by a peasant. The quarter-ris coin, the silver pooling, is likely the highest denomination they will ever lay hands on. But most likely they'll just be seeing the tin bit and the brass pawn.

As for the malumite castle - only in legends have they heard of these coins that are worth lives...
 
For distances, I used the following since they're somewhat fuzzy; you can vary them to match the story:

A league -- how far you can walk in an hour or how far you can ride a horse in an hour.

A pace -- the distance between your footprints at a vigorous walk.

A span (for heights) -- grab a rope in both fists and spread them out as far as possible.


For money, I use:

A pfenny (copper, brass, or bronze)-- unskilled labour for one hour.

A diem (silver) -- unskilled labour for one day (think: per diem).

A lunar (gold) -- unskilled labour for a month

A solar (gold) -- unskilled labour for a year
 
In The Name of The Wind, a span is an amount of days - 11, to be exact. It sounds equally like an amount of time and a distance, so it could be used wither way.

I've revised my money system, using the idea I had for hopewrites. The coins are based off of what they are worth. They are basically like carrying around eggs, barrels of fish, iron nails, or whatever else you would trade. The coins stand in for the objects. The lowest denomination is worth exactly as much as an egg. Creatively called a ceg. Then comes cloth - the bolt, worth around as much as the average bolt of cloth. Next we have the wik, enough to buy some candles - an expensive necessity. Those are the three low-class coins.

Now, the three upper-class coins. The animal coin - I'm deciding whether it should be a sheep/goat, or a horse. Though a horse is worth tons more in my opinion, as it means transportation. So I'll go with sheep/goat. Not sure what to call the coin though. Then the wagon coin. Also stumped as to the name. Then, last but not least, the castle.
 
I use different names for currencies, and have quite a bit of fun coming up with them, although I tend to use our own history as a guide. When it comes to days of the week and months I have my own names, because ours are so intrinsically tied to specific mythologies.

When it comes to other units of measurement such as distances, I stick to our real-world examples, mostly because otherwise it will just confuse a reader.

Yes, I can say "we still have fifty ergots to travel today" but that's meaningless to the reader, and will have zero impact.

The other thing I argue is, the story I'm writing is in english. Obviously on this world of mine they don't speak English. So it's essentially a "translation", thus I treat many other elements as a "translation".
 
Why does the currency have to be metal coins?

We only use gold and silver in the real world because they are rare, have a high value/weight ratio and intrinsic value.

If you're world's cultures aren't into jewellery making, gold/silver/copper will have little actual value. Jade, obsidian, jet, amber etc can't be melted and reshaped so are out for different reasons

Historically, all sorts of things have been used as currency (even sand dollars). Just been playing Metro 2033, where high-quality, pre-apocalypse bullets are used as currency (they are light, rare and have a definite value for killing mutants!)

That's why the cocoa beans make sense. They are light, rare and can be turned to something actually valuable

There are other things to consider as well, such as the shape. Coins have the metal chipped off the edges, so maybe in your world governments have a system to counter that. Or maybe the coins have holes in them like old Chinese and other currencies, so that you can string them together

Denomination-wise, it depends on your number system and the age of the currency system.

When the currency/number system is introduced, most have a rule of thumb that you start off with 1 unit and then have fractions divide by 2 until you get to a unit so small it becomes inconvenient. $1 coin, 50c coin, 20c, 10c, 5c, 2c, 1c coin(?). At the other end of the scale, when inflation causes the value of the 1 unit to become impractical, you introduce a new unit at the top and ditch the lowest denominations of the old currency. E.g. in China, 10 fen = 1mao(jiao), 10mao = 1 yuan, but inflation in the last 30 years has made fen all but worthless (I never came across anything smaller than 1/2 mao in 4 months there).

So the older the system, the more it will have suffered inflation and the more likely there will be multiple units rather than 1 unit and fractions of it
 
I have been rolling this problem around for my story ever since it was brought up. I thought I had avoided it by going with a straight barter system, but now that I think more on it I realize that I havent and have been trying to come up with culturally accurate types of "coinage" for my separate sets of humanoids.
Metal will have been taboo for both sets for different reasons. So that leaves me with more organic material options. I read in a book where a wealth of cattle or sheep was displayed with carved wooden beads or coins strung on a necklace. I like the idea of being able to display one's wealth as a fashion statement so might go with something like that.
 

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