Shekel of silver is about one-third of an ounce.
Barter chits for types with sixteen differenent chits.
Rings of silver as a way to carry larger amounts of cash.
Copper, tin, lead, and barley (the last is small change).–Welcome to Sumeria
Cowrie shells, cigarrettes, and many other items (generally those that are rare) have been used.
Credits–The Typical SF currency
Latest Stable Computer Processing Time–the monetary system for part of the Starsong System. Millis are a great deal of wealth as they represent one millisecond worth of a planetary net. Of course, such uses don’t give you the right to the whole milli in one millisecond because others have priority claims, but you can be sure of being able to spend it all in the span of two minutes. One key factor is that the worth of a milli, or one of its lesser percents is continually increasing as the planetary nets get more mature. And there are different values for different capability planetary nets.
Starsong also has a monetary system for commodity items. This is backed up by charitable foundations who own robo-factories capable of churning out millions of ‘things’. It is fiat money backed up by huge amounts of potential production.
Another theoretical advanced monetary concept used in Starsong is Interest Units or IU’s. These entitle you to the services of experts, and banks have contracts with these experts to serve as backup for the fiat money the bank creates. Because in Starsong, you can get just about anything that is not perfectly made for you at quite reasonable rates, but if you want a master item customized to you, and most people do, then it tends to require a human expert.
The deben is an Egyptian measure of a precious metal used in trade that weighs in at three ounces. Rod shaped ingots are multiples of the deben.
Also, coils and the aforementioned rings are other forms of toting large amounts of cash about.
Electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver, is a popular metal choice for coins.
Also, money in the shape of spades and knives, but quite tiny has been made with bronze among the Han.
Salt and spices have also been used. In the Middle Ages, in Britain, it was possible to pay rent to the landlord in pepper.
In Temple of the Dying Sun there are Lancaster Gold and Silver Marks which are regarded as very good, but the ultimate is Auria which is a gold coin produced by the City Auriador, the richest city in the world.
Another system for future settings is ‘Glory’. That is, you are helpful to another person,a nd they grant you points of Glory. Each person gets a certain amount of Glory simply for breathing.
Another method is a local currency such as Ithaca Time Hours where Hours are accepted by a list of local businesses who are contracted to accept them. It has benefits of boosting a local economy where you have underutilized capacity. This is especially useful in economically oppressed communities which have abundant capacity, but most of the money has been sucked out of the system by their oppressors, and other outsiders.
Another concept is Service Hours where one helps for an hour, and one is able to draw an hour of service out later from anyone. This includes experts and non-experts. This tends to create a fairly egalitarian economic system because while experts will always be more valued than non-experts, you can’t pay them that much more because everyone has the same amount of time in a day. There is some hierarchy as experts will likely be able to work as many hours as they are willing, while the less skilled may not be able to get a job.
September 26th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Roman coins were worth more than their metal value; this reduced the tendency of people to melt them down.
Feudal Japan measured wealth in koku, which was a unit of rice production.
Somewhere I have a Game Ideas Unlimited article about the development of the “creditos” in the Brazilian economy, which is a currency built on a barter exchange concept.
Large stone wheels were used for currency somewhere; these were hard to steal, which was their strength.
In some Oriental milieu, the coins had holes in them, and were strung in strings of a hundred of the same and worn as necklaces or armbands under the clothing.
–M. J. Young
September 26th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Interesting point about the worth of Roman coins….I had one website which suggested that coins were worth their value in precious metal, and thats it. Of course, it was a website for a fantasy world.
Perhaps the greater worth of the Roman coin is that it is a known value vs. an unknown value…and people pay more for security. I’d be willing to take a loan on with a higher interest rate that was fixed than an ARM that was temporarily lower.
I think the cowrie shells might have been used on necklaces like the Oriental millieu coins.
And for 500$, that’d be ‘What is the Island of Yap’ if I remember right on the ‘really huge round stones’. One really neat thing about these is they were used as owned by someone else, but not moved. And in some cases, a stone that was lost at sea was still counted as owned.
This is one of the ‘Dimensional Differences’ or ‘Spices from the Other-Dimensional Spice Rack’ that I’d like to have the GM have available as a chart. Say, twenty or so monetary systems or if you want to stick with the 3d10 have a GE chart for money types….which would have the interesting effect of needing to place say ‘16′ as paper fiat money, and ‘17′ as silver, and ‘30′ as ‘giant stone rings’….:)
This ’spice rack’ is obviously still in development along with my article on Romance Theory.