A Universal Currency System

[farmchamp]

Coins are to hard to make to be common, and parchment is easily counterfeit. But.. You had to take time to get the hides, skin the monsters and make the parchment, right? I am just throwing this out there, but we should use parchment with some universal text on it, such as {money}, and use that as currency. The quality is how much the bill is worth. The only problem with this is that the hunters will have more money than the farmers or craftsmen. Before you say this is crap, the only requirements for a currency is that it is agreed each piece of currency has a set value, and that all agree to accept it. A penny used to have a penny's worth of copper, but now a penny is worth less than a penny, because it is copper plated zinc, but is it still worth one cent? Yes. Just because Parchment isn't expensive doesn't mean that it couldn't be accepted throughout the hearthlands as something of value. Thoughts on this?

[Laremere]

I think this is really more dependent on someone with a gold or silver mine taking up making coins and getting them into circulation.

[Peter]

The problem is it's still easily counterfeitable. A piece of parchment is only worth what it takes to make it.
A penny, although not worth a lot, is more difficult to make than the raw materials would suggest. That is, a penny is not just a raw brassy disk with "1c" written on it; it is also a meaningful document from the US government (for all that's worth). If each hide parchment was guaranteed to be worth a bar of iron from some town, then you might see people trade them... but you'd also see a lot of fake ones floating around.

A checking account might work, though.

[Krantarin]

Once there's a stable economy with gold and silver as it's base, I'm sure Banks will spring up. When banks do spring up, I'd support an effort to make an un-counterfeitable bank-note type bill. They wouldn't be worth anything themselves, just redeemable, so they'd be worth the backer. We could have a really cool stock-market and banker guild... my next character should be named Medici. Anyway, that's the way dollar bills should work. The way they did before the US government took us off the gold standard and made everything imaginary. *shakes fist*

[sabinati]

needs the wax seal mechanic that j&l have talked about, and needs to be backed by gold/silver

[theTrav]

Once there's a stable economy with gold and silver as it's base, I'm sure Banks will spring up. When banks do spring up, I'd support an effort to make an un-counterfeitable bank-note type bill. They wouldn't be worth anything themselves, just redeemable, so they'd be worth the backer. We could have a really cool stock-market and banker guild... my next character should be named Medici. Anyway, that's the way dollar bills should work. The way they did before the US government took us off the gold standard and made everything imaginary. *shakes fist*

All you'd have to do for that RIGHT NOW is to get yourself a ton of wrought, convert it all to coins and start trading it.

[XkrikX]

well, ive noticed thetrav is trying to circulate copper coins, isnt that right?

[Neyvn]

ARRGHH no Fair Farmchamp. Don't read my mind...
Seriously was thinking bout this at work only a few hours ago...

I was thinking we work out how much something is worth. IF we could get GOLD (Monopolizer of Gold at the moment) to help us out. Unless someone else has found both/Either Gold and Silver mines and haven't told us about it. Memory not working...

I would think that the three major Metals for Currency would be Gold Silver and Copper as with real life society of old. BUT anyone could get their hands on a Bar though some method and make themselves suddenly richer...

Three things needed to be done.
ONE - A SINGLE 'Mint' to start producing Gold, Silver and Copper coins, Keeping a Tally of their production. If memory serves correct, one bar makes 9 nuggets which make 11Coins. So that means for each Processed Bar the Mint owner would add that to the World. This means that anyone that makes their own COIN's will find it difficult to a slight (nearly no existent) degree to add their coins to the mix. As there will be an Upgraded Post that holds the amount of coins in the world...

TWO - An actual Bank comes into play, perhaps under the Mint's Village control or perhaps at Brodger. Here every Hearthling can come into the Bank, present their coins and a register is updated. This way it will be known were each Coin is much likc Governments know how much (to a close enough degree) each person in their country has. This will dissuade Counterfeit workers as when the counts are added together it will be known where to the third party this extra coin has come from. But a lot of Honest play comes into action here...

THREE - An actual TRADER'S COST comes into action, with the chance some things might become limited such as crop locations and such in the future. Perhaps Far Future. We will need to work out how much a copper coin is to a silver, a silver to a Gold. And then how many Coppers for a single Loaf of Bread for example. Working out this measurement will allow people to work out if the person they are trading with is Ripping them off to the next galaxy or in Trader's Right to up the profit like the Local Supermarket does in a small town compared to that big Shopping Mall...

[Blaze]

From a practical person's point of view, if you give me a choice between 100 coins and 1 bar, I'll always take the bar.

Dealing in coins means dealing with metal in smaller values. Which may make sense for very small personal trades. However, most dealings with metal are done between factions/towns meaning YOU'LL RARELY TRADE IN VALUES LESS THAN A BAR. Especially after Potjeh's push to even out the values of mined goods and farmed goods.

This has been stymied somewhat by the introduction of nuggets, which means even small amounts of coins can be put to use. Before that, I'd never even consider trading with coins since I'd have to collect 100 of them just to get any use out of them. Any way I look at it though, I'd still rather have a nugget than 10 coins. Less fuss that way.

Also, I really don't see why we have to limit minted coins to gold/silver (which I see as complete waste of a perfectly good nugget). 11 coins of any metal can be turned into a nugget which can be used in a variety of things.

[CG62]

A universally accepted currency is most likely an impossible fantasy, and it relies solely on the playerbase to change that (along with the wax seal for the coinpress).

So assuming you have a willing populace, a decent coinpress, and all the metal required to start minting coins, good on you.

edited out typos