Age of sail currency

[hal]

Hello Folks,
After looking closely (too closely perhaps) at GURPS SWASHBUCKLERS, I came to wonder just how accurate the currency ratios given in GURPS SWASHBUCKLER really are. Material I've read about the French currency indicates to me that the French Livre was valued at roughly 2 Livre = 1 Pound Sterling. From there, it isn't too hard to back track the various currency despite the fluctuations involved with the various French denominations.

Where I'm running into problems however, was the worth of a Spanish coin against any of the other currencies involved. In addition, the material in page 17 of GURPS SWASHBUCKLER indicates that a Livre is worth 6.67 GURPS.

THAT is a major disconnect for me and I'm wondering if there are other sources to work off of with respect to currency of the time. Delving into the origin of the Ecu - it seems that circa late 1200's, the Ecu was a a gold coin, not silver. By the mid-1600's - the currency is changing and valuations are not entirely "exact" (if Wikipedia is anything to go by, and I always try to keep in mind that Wikipedia isn't the most reliable of sources). None the less, trying to get a line on coinage seems a bit trying.

Anyone got information they can point me towards?

thanks,
Hal

[AlexanderHowl]

Spain experienced a large degree of inflation when it started imported gold and silver from its American possessions. Some of it went to China on the Manila Galleons, but most came to Spain to pay for its wars. Pretty soon, it became cheaper for Spain to import goods and food than to produce them, so you had massive rural unemployment.

Depending on when France and Spain were fighting, France also suffered inflation, as Spain bought its grain from France when they were at peace. England was less impacted, though Henry VIII nearly bankrupted England when he allied with Spain against the rebels in the Netherlands. In essence, practically any reasonable range of exchange rates could be justified during the Age of Sail, depending on the supply of precious metals and the debasement of the currencies in question.

[Phantasm]

One thing I came across that I found amusing was that the Spanish Pieces of Eight - silver coins minted in the Spanish New World - were legal tender in the British and Dutch American Colonies and the United States from around 1600 until around 1840. No clue about the exchange rates with the British Pound or the later United States Dollar; any such exchange rate would have been informal and probably for simplicity based on the weight of the silver.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by hal

Hello Folks,
After looking closely (too closely perhaps) at GURPS SWASHBUCKLERS, I came to wonder just how accurate the currency ratios given in GURPS SWASHBUCKLER really are.

Given the huge time frame they cover ("17th and 18th centuries" ie 1601-1800) the ratios are reasonably accurate.

There are various issues. The large amounts of gold coming into Spain resulted in the Price revolution which amounted to the situation seen in a gold rush town where there are few goods and a lot of wealth around ie inflation.

This period also saw the rise of the slave trade and the very lucrative Triangular trade.

[hal]

Thank you gentlemen for your responses...

The measure of inflation largely suggests that the prices of goods end up requiring more coinage to purchase things. If it takes twice as much French silver coins by weight/silver content to purchase goods than it does to buy those same goods in England, the issue of inflation does indeed become a problem when comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges.

What I've come across time and again is that by silver content alone - two Livres = 1 Pound sterling. If that is the case, then seeing that GURPS SWASHBUCKLERS assigns a value of $6.67 per Livre vs $100 pound sterling doesn't match the expectation that the Livre should be worth about $50 (assuming the Pound Sterling itself is worth $100).

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by hal

The measure of inflation largely suggests that the prices of goods end up requiring more coinage to purchase things.

Might be more accurate to say the abundance of coinage ended up requiring higher prices to convince people to part with their goods. You show up with two coins when the merchant is confident someone will be along in the next hour with ten...

The idea of an exchange rate would probably be alien to people of the time. An ounce of gold will be an ounce of gold wherever you go, it's just that in some places an ounce of gold (whether it has a James, a Henri, a Carlos, or a Leopold stamped on it) will get you different amounts of goods.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Might be more accurate to say the abundance of coinage ended up requiring higher prices to convince people to part with their goods. You show up with two coins when the merchant is confident someone will be along in the next hour with ten...

The idea of an exchange rate would probably be alien to people of the time. An ounce of gold will be an ounce of gold wherever you go, it's just that in some places an ounce of gold (whether it has a James, a Henri, a Carlos, or a Leopold stamped on it) will get you different amounts of goods.

One must also remember that coins in the early part of the Golden Age of Piracy were hand struck making them prone to Coin Clipping. In fact the edge of modern coins (milling) was developed as a way to combat this practice.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The idea of an exchange rate would probably be alien to people of the time. An ounce of gold will be an ounce of gold wherever you go, it's just that in some places an ounce of gold (whether it has a James, a Henri, a Carlos, or a Leopold stamped on it) will get you different amounts of goods.

Not at all! By the late middle ages one of the key skills of a merchant was knowing the silver and gold content of different currencies, how demand varied by season and location (if you are in Flanders when the weavers are buying English wool, English money is worth more than its silver content suggests and Flemish less), coins which had recently been adulterated, and so on. In big towns the rates changed at least daily. Merchants used money of account for book-keeping but had to be constantly aware of exchange rates.

Hal, I would ask a reference librarian, but here is one online database http://www2.scc.rutgers.edu/memdb/database_list.html It has the silver content of the livre tournois changing from 11 g to 6.6 g between 1600 and 1670

[Polydamas]

For the early 18th century you could try http://www.pierre-marteau.com/currency/converter.html but keep in mind that it comes from 'whatever handbook they decided was representative.' My focus is earlier, but I suspect that 18th century exchange rates still varied daily. There are reasons that Neil Stephenson decided to make the Baroque Cycle about money!

A good reason for things like the GURPS Dollar is that they avoid spending a lot of time doing something we spend too long on in real life and which does not involve any interesting choices. Its easier to lump knowledge of exchange rates, tricks like using heavy weights when buying and light weights when selling, where and when to buy and sell to get the best price, etc. into a single roll against a trading skill.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by hal

If it takes twice as much French silver coins by weight/silver content to purchase goods than it does to buy those same goods in England

Prices aren't consistent across large areas (much less time). Trying to track down medieval English prices, it was pretty common to see a factor of ten difference in different examples for the same good in about the same timeframe. Urban, rural, where the goods are produced, who's buying and bothering to write the prices down so that we even know about them... it all adds up to potentially huge differences. There weren't any giant national chains advertising sale prices on mass media or smartphone apps where you could just look up a better deal so that the merchant would sadly face to drop their price* to standardize prices, no campaigns for uniform minimum wage laws, no mass transportation of standardized sizes so you'd just go get your lumber via railroad from across the nation or easy migration of labor to more lucrative places.

Just being off by a factor of two for the same good, one in England, one in France, doesn't sound very far off to me, annoying as it might be for compiling a simple master list for game prices. Historians would have to do a huge amount of work to try to account for all the factors that make prices different. The notion that there is one true and proper price for something even to be found is itself flawed.

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* I'm looking at you, Best Buy :)