Quote:
Originally Posted by JLV
There was a lengthy debate on this topic around the time the game went to Kickstarter. The general consensus was that the rules should be written simply ("$", simple 10-10-10 Copper-Silver-Gold conversions, and prices done consistently using those standards) and the players/GM could feel free to complicate it as much as they want. "So how many Thalers do my Bezants actually convert to?" becomes a role-playing question instead of a rules issue.
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10 copper to the silver is a huge verisimilitude issue for anyone who is in any way competent at numismatics... because copper has never been so valuable in the real world.
The US penny has an interesting valuation in the 1792 coinage act, section 9, defining the following coins and values. unreduced fractions retained, but text reduced to numbers (excepting the Eagle for demonstration of textual form)
The value of a grain of "standard gold" is thus about 37 mils per grain, 2.4 mils per grain for "standard gold"), and copper about 0.038 mils per grain.
This gives gold a value of around 977 x that of copper, and 15.4x that of silver; silver about 63.46x that of copper.
- Gold Eagle ($10.00): "two hundred and seventy grains of standard gold" or 247 4/8 grains of "pure gold." (20.25 grains of non-gold in the alloy, then)
- Half-Eagle ($5.00): 123 6/8 gr. pure gold, 135 gr standard gold.
- Quarter-Eagle ($2.50): 61 7/8 gr. pure gold or 67 4/8 standard gold
- Dollar ($1.00): 371 4/16 gr pure, or 416 gr standard silver
- Half-Dollar ($0.50): 185 10/16 gr pure or 208 gr standard silver
- Quarter Dollar ($0.25): 92 3/16 gr pure or 104 gr standard silver
- Dismes ($0.1): 37 2/16 gr pure or 41 3/5 gr standard silver
- Half-Dismes ($0.05): 18 9/16 gr pure or 20 4/5 gr standard silver
- Cents ($0.01): 11 dwt (pennyweights) copper (264 gr)
- Half-cents ($0.005) 5 1/2 dwt copper. (132 gr)
That's about the highest value of copper historically - modern copper extraction was absent, silver was flowing rapidly, and gold was still largely placer mined...
Modern mining has not massively increased gold availability as much as it did silver, and copper mining has shot so far up in capability that copper values are now much less value compared to silver.
Assuming a $1 reference of any reasonable size
Note that bronze or brass coins can be good $0.1, with copper as $0.01, and gold coins would be debased to about 60% gold (copper-gold alloy) to get a similar weight gold coin in real world pre-industrial, late-/post- -renaissance Earth, about 75% in Cidri.
TLDR Copper is logically not a good value for a $0.1 coin - unless it weighs 10 times as much as the silver coin.
Corollary: Gygax's coin names are idiocy.