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Old 02-09-2014, 06:23 PM   #1
GodBeastX
 
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Default Equipment: How much does a coin weight?

We're playing a Dungeon Fantasy-esque campaign (Not strict dungeon fantasy) and find the treasure tables too rewarding if you roll blind (You get rich FAST). Since loot tends to be smaller and less amazing in general, I've been working on a javascript that would cater more towards the low rewards system of treasure we follow for impromptu treasure generation.

That said, I'm working on the coin generation at the moment after I finished armors and such (Cheap quality happens most!), and I'm wondering what a coin weighs?
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Old 02-09-2014, 06:33 PM   #2
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

Silver dollars/talers/crowns/pesos de ocho etc. weighed about an ounce, and not many coins were bigger. Silver pennies/pfennigs/deniers weighed about 1/20 of an ounce; there were smaller coins such as obols, but they weren't very practical.

Gold ducats and florins weighed about an eighth of an ounce. Golden guineas weighed a little less than a third of an ounce. Sovereigns weighed less than a guinea, and half-sovereigns more than a ducat.
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Old 02-09-2014, 06:38 PM   #3
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

I'll go with 0.05 then.
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Old 02-09-2014, 06:57 PM   #4
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

For reference, weights of US coins:
Penny: 2.5 grams, or 0.0055 lb.
Nickel: 5.0 grams, or 0.011 lb.
Dime: 2.268 grams, or 0.005 lb
Quarter: 5.67 grams, or 0.0125 lb
Half-Dollar: 11.34 grams, or 0.025 lb.
Silver Dollar: 22.68 grams, or 0.05 lb.
Dollar Coin (current): 8.1 grams, or 0.0179 lb.
Eagle ($10 gold coin) (before 1837): 270 grains, or 0.0386 lb.
Eagle (1837-1933): 258 grains, or 0.0369 lb.
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Old 02-09-2014, 07:14 PM   #5
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

Quote:
Originally Posted by GodBeastX View Post
We're playing a Dungeon Fantasy-esque campaign (Not strict dungeon fantasy) and find the treasure tables too rewarding if you roll blind (You get rich FAST). Since loot tends to be smaller and less amazing in general, I've been working on a javascript that would cater more towards the low rewards system of treasure we follow for impromptu treasure generation.

That said, I'm working on the coin generation at the moment after I finished armors and such (Cheap quality happens most!), and I'm wondering what a coin weighs?
My usual rule of thumb for medieval societies is based on 12 pennies to the shilling, and 20 shillings to the pound. That's a literal pound, a pound of silver (a troy pound, 372 grams), and so a pennyweight, an actual unit of weight, is 1/20 of an ounce (a troy ounce, 31 grams), or about 1.5 grams. The pound and shilling were actually accounting units; no one minted a silver coin that weighed a pound!

GURPS follows the convention that a pound of silver is $1000, from which you can equate a shilling to $50, and a penny rounds down to $4 (and, conveniently, a farthing, a quarter of a penny—it's a cognate of fourth—is $1). A farthing, though, is an incredibly tiny weight.

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Old 02-09-2014, 09:16 PM   #6
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
A farthing, though, is an incredibly tiny weight.
Or possibly a coin made of a metal of less value than silver. Copper farthings were minted for centuries, and tin was used on occasion. The copper coins look to be about 1/5 of an ounce. About 4x that of a penny.
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Old 02-09-2014, 09:20 PM   #7
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

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Originally Posted by GodBeastX View Post
We're playing a Dungeon Fantasy-esque campaign (Not strict dungeon fantasy) and find the treasure tables too rewarding if you roll blind (You get rich FAST)
You are correct. The treasure tables assume genuine treasure, not just stuff that happens to be lying around, by design.
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Old 02-09-2014, 09:22 PM   #8
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
Or possibly a coin made of a metal of less value than silver.
Or some sort of trade token. However, I suspect a lot of small transactions like that weren't handled in coin.
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Old 02-09-2014, 09:35 PM   #9
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

A long while back I was writing up the data file for GURPS Banestorm and realized that coin weights weren't included in that text, outside of a very few. So I turned to Phil Masters to ask his opinion and got a well thought out essay of coins for that gameworld, which I'll present here as food for thought:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Masters
COINS OF YTARRIA

A note on Coin weights from Phil Masters

The information on coins was based on older published stuff about
Yrth; if I'd been writing the book from scratch, I might have based
it a bit more on historical fact...

But anyway. The only actual weight given in that text is for a
Megalan silver pound, which is a one-pound bar of silver. So let's
assume that the Megalan pound weight is near-as-darnit equal to a
modern Imperial pound, and not worry too much about the likelihood of
that; it'll save work. This suggests that silver trades at around
$1,000 to the pound, or $62.50 to the ounce.

Now, this *shouldn't* actually tell us very much about the weight of
silver coins, which might be more or less adulterated (dwarvish coins
are specifically noted for their purity), and which may exchange at a
discount or premium depending on levels of trust and convenience.
However, if we try setting the weights on that basis without
explaining it to *everyone*, you'll get a lot of errata notes, and
countless munchkins will discover the dubious joys of coining. So
we'll simplify again, and calculate the weight of each silver coin on
that basis:

Megalan/Caithness Penny, Muslim Dirham ($4): 0.064 ounce (0.004 lbs.)
(This is historically rather small for a coin, but probably not
actually impossible.)
Zarakun Ffo ($144): 2.304 ounces (0.144 lbs.)
(Round that down to, say, 2 ounces/0.125 lbs. if you want to
reflect the exceptional purity.)
Sahudese Yen ($10): 0.16 ounces (0.01 lbs.)

Now, we don't have a known rate of exchange of other metals to
silver, and realistically, this should shift quite a bit over time,
causing coin values to shift as well. However, we have some numbers
in the book, so let's play with those. To start with, there's copper.

I think that this should be fairly low in value, more out of regard
for RPG tradition than realism; copper coins should be relatively
chunky and comforting in the hand. So let's have a Megalan/Caithness
farthing or Muslim halala (value $1) weigh in at 0.32 ounces (0.02
lbs.) - about twice as much as an American nickel. That means that
silver is worth 20 times as much as copper - a nod to the old British
system. It also means that the Zarakun kenn would weigh about the
same, or maybe a bit less given its exceptional purity (say 0.24
ounces/0.015 lbs.), and a Zarakun dann should come in at 3.84
ounces/0.24 lbs. if it was human money, or 2.88 ounces/0.18 lbs. as
it's dwarvish.

Finally, there's gold. I believe that, historically, an exchange rate
between gold and silver of 25 to 1 wouldn't be impossible, so let's
use that. This gives us:

Megalan/Caithness Mark: 0.512 ounces (0.032 lbs.)
Muslim Dinar: 0.256 ounces (0.016 lbs.)
Muslim Talent: 2.56 ounces (0.16 lbs.) (chunky!)
Zarakuhn Tohn: 13.27104 ounces (0.82944 lbs.)
(Once again, you can round that down for purity - say, 12.8
ounces/0.8 lbs.)

Oh, and Sahudese paper money would have a nominal weight.
One idea that this brings up, in regards to Dungeon Fantasy, is the idea that not all coin need be standardized or, at least, of the standard type available in the campaign. It's certainly possible to have coins as part of a treasure be from many different countries and realms or from ancient civilizations long forgotten and, as such, be of just about any weight and size that can conveniently be carried. Historically it was not uncommon for merchants to have scales to weigh coins as well as equipment test them (with touchstones for gold or acid tests for gold, silver, and other metals). This leads to the next problem of having to dispose of the non-standard coins through a smith who will need to melt the coins to recast them. Then what happens if the ancient coins turn out to be from a cursed civilization and no honest smith is willing to touch them and no guild merchant to take them in trade? Of course, somebody will take them, because it's too valuable not to... but what if the curse is real? And maybe the long dead Dwarves of Yorl want their gold coins back...
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Last edited by ericbsmith; 02-09-2014 at 09:48 PM.
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Old 02-09-2014, 09:36 PM   #10
Agemegos
 
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Default Re: Equipment: How much does a coin weigh?

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
My usual rule of thumb for medieval societies is based on 12 pennies to the shilling, and 20 shillings to the pound. That's a literal pound, a pound of silver (a troy pound, 372 grams), and so a pennyweight, an actual unit of weight, is 1/20 of an ounce (a troy ounce, 31 grams), or about 1.5 grams.
England didn't adopt the Troy system of weights until 1527. The mediaeval English penny was 1/240 of a pound Tower Weight, and the pound Tower Weight was about 350 grams.

Neither was the Troy system of any great antiquity in France: the Carolingian denier was established about 800 AD as 1/240 of a Roman pound of 326 grams.
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