raw metals cost

[Joseph R]

Originally Posted by benz72
You are absolutely right. Perhaps repricing rough goods (spikes, nails, rod/bar/plate...) by material weight would make your values line up a little better. If you do work through all this stuff and come up with a revised DF equipment list with different prices & weights would you mind sharing it?

Sure, if I ever do so, then I'll share it. In all likelihood though, I'll just go for a simpler solution to tide me over until Low-Tech is released (hopefully soon...).

Although I'm not really running a DF game, some of the item options are useful. It's good that the prices are in line with the Basic Set. I'm assuming that for the most part, the costs in Low-Tech will be kept in line too (at least as much as would make historical sense, or whatever). So, I'm interested to see how ingots of iron/bronze etc, will be priced in there when it's released.

With this in mind, and adding into the mix that I'm already in mid-campaign, I'm not looking to change all the prices of the finished goods myself. I'd rather just say that the basic metals have to be much cheaper than others have suggested the prices be.

I presume that spikes aren't always made from highest quality iron (this could be an incorrect assumption of course) and spikes seem to be the cheapest solid iron item listed (per pound). I'd guess I'll go for something like $1 for basic Cast Iron/lb, maybe with better quality Wrought Iron and Steel at higher prices, say $2/lb and $5/lb respectively. That'll leave me room to have Copper and Bronze at higher prices, and still be much less than any such finished articles of those material weights.

[Barenziah58]

Originally Posted by Unwitting Pawn

Yes, all these are more reasons why the finished product costs need to be much higher than that of the raw materials. As some of the items in Characters are only a few farthings ($), this means that the cost of iron at least needs to be dirt cheap.

Well, luckily I don't know them, but in the unlikely event that I do find out who they are, I'll try to keep my mouth shut :)

Yes, my concerns run along similar lines ;)

From iron ore in the middle age europe make 20 tons of pig iron ayear.Pig iron was make into wrought iron by than simple methord which make up the bulk of blacksmith iron produsts. 2 tons where convert inro steel thought than very long and methoud.

[Barenziah58]

Europe in the middle age never cast iron they blast furturn never reach than tempurate hot enought long enought to melt iron, they pig iron was than mixutes of stone and iron like 80% to 90% iron. Where as today our pig iron is 100% iron.

[Gudiomen]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Do you have a page reference?

p.40

"Armoury" sidebar, continues on p.41.

It gives the cost for blanks and making blanks from ingots, or from metal scavanged from the battlefield. Cost is well bellow the numbers Humabout proposes.

I may be missunderstanding what a "blank" means, now that I re-read the rules... anyone?

[hal]

I had pretty much stayed out of the conversation simply because the issue of pegging a value to any given material within a given "currency" system is not something I can claim expert status on ;)

None the less, THIS would be a good thread to read in its entirety when it comes to finding out what is involved in mining, cost of metals (such as iron per lb of weight) etc.

Just a quickie piece of info regarding minting.

Coins in general, are minted such that the cost of minting is taken out of the value of the coin itself. Thus, if you're to mint some say, 100 silver coins, and if 100 silver coins were equal in weight to 1 lb (just for purposes of illustration here only!), one might think that the value of 1 lb of silver should equal the value of 100 silver coins right?

Nope. What happens is that if the minter is allowed to keep 5% of the value of the coins he's minted, he only puts in 95% of the value of the silver into the silver coin itself. Those 100 coins then, would have a nominal value of 100 coin's weight worth of silver, but in reality, it would have the real value of only 95 weight's worth of silver, with the minter keeping the remaining actual 5% for himself.

This is one reason why prices in later times wound up increasing. It wasn't neccessarily the result of market forces per se, but in some instances, were the results of coin debasing. For instance, if a King mandates that a given coin must be 97% pure, and then debases the coinage by lowering the silver content to 90%, that 7% that got clipped out, would eventually result in people raising their prices by the 7% the coin was artificially debased. Older coins that had been buried, would find that their melt down value exceeded their nominal value would indeed, be melted down - either that, or the holder would bargain as if their buying power was increased.

In any event, read the Materials Cost thread, as it has a lot of goodies in it. It also explains why the price of $5 per pound for iron based on historical England (for example) is a good price to use overall.

For those who are interested in Historical English coins, there is a nice website HERE you may want to visit...

Oh, almost forgot. Dan Howard posted a URL in the Materials Cost thread, that is unfortunately, a broken link. I would suggest that you look at the information contained at THIS link instead. Once you grab it, save it on your hard drive for your own use later on, as one never knows how long even an archive might last if the company hosting it stops hosting it... ;)

[hal]

Originally Posted by Gudiomen

p.40

"Armoury" sidebar, continues on p.41.

It gives the cost for blanks and making blanks from ingots, or from metal scavanged from the battlefield. Cost is well bellow the numbers Humabout proposes.

I may be missunderstanding what a "blank" means, now that I re-read the rules... anyone?

As I understand it, blanks are pieces of a given material, that has already been worked into a usable form rather than requiring the smith to break it into usable form. If for example, you need a given amount of steel for your project, and the ingot is about 5 times the size of what you need, you then have to work that ingot to break it down to the size (and shape) of what you need. By preparing the blanks outright ahead of time, and selling the blanks to the end user, you're saving that user time in preparing the ingot material for use with his project. Try imagining the process of having to take a 10 lb ingot of iron, and having to chisel out 3 lbs for use with a broad sword, and then losing another 1/2 pound of iron in the process of grinding it, shaping it, and so forth. Contrast this against buying a 3 lb steel blank from the getgo. The time you spent cutting it off the 10 lb block is time you could have spent working the Steel into a weapon. That's my understanding, and I might be wrong.

[Joseph R]

Thanks Hal,
I'll check out those links.