Money in Middle-earth

[Valandil]

In the posts I'm working up, I would like to make references to money - including amounts and kinds. Should we set some basic guidelines? I'm not talking about how it all works, and whether or not Angmar is trying to cause "inflation" - but just setting up something about coins and their relative values.

I still suggest a "silver penny" as the basic standard. If we have it set such that the daily wages of a working man is about either one or two silver pennies, that's a good starting point.

To go lower, for items like drinks, meals, etc - I suggest a copper coin. The value could be 1/10th, 1/12th, 1/20th or 1/25th of the silver penny - so that one or two copper coins could cover lots of small purchases. I'm still trying to think of a good name for this one. Thought I had one once, but if I wrote it down I don't know where I have it.

As for values - we could go with multiples of 4, 8, 12 - things like that, as that seems pretty common for ancient times - which goes with the 'tharni' and 'castar' mentioned in POME. However - Tolkien did tell us in the notes to "Disaster at Gladden" that Numenoreans used "decimal" reckoning - so multiples of 10, 20, etc, might make sense.

For the really rich, there could be a gold coin. I now suggest "crown" as the name - and it could be larger than the silver coin - so it might be... maybe about 20-50 times the worth?

So - a few specific proposals that work within that:

I. (1) Gold Crown = (50) Silver Pennies = (1000) Copper Coins
II. (1) Gold Crown = (40) Silver Pennies = (1000) Copper Coins
III. (1) Gold Crown = (40) Silver Pennies = (960) Copper Coins
IV. (1) Gold Crown = (24) Silver Pennies = (288) Copper Coins

Some other mix??

Anyway - if we're somewhere in one of those ranges, I can write my posts without being specific enough to lock us into any one of them.

[Witch-king of Angmar]

Val, this monetary standard should be an asset to all of us. Thanks for coming up with it.

[Valandil]

Well - I largely based it on the great information that Alcuin shared with us.

But actually, I gave several different options. Which is most appealing?

If it's up to me, I'm going to select #III:

III. (1) Gold Crown = (40) Silver Pennies = (960) Copper Coins

As for relative value - I'll also start with Alcuin's suggestion about two Silver Pennies being one day's pay for a soldier - let's say a Dunedain man-at-arms or infantryman. So - he pulls in 1 1/2 Gold Crowns per month - 18 per year. Is this too much, or about right/something we can work with?

We can say the gold coin is about 2 1/2 times the size of the silver, so the relative value at this time is 16:1. I still need a good name for the copper coin, so I'll let you know. I like the Dunedain type decimal difference between gold and silver - but think a 24X multiple (12 would work as well, if we like) reflects more a pre-Dunedain Eriador thing for the silver to copper, which the Dunedain adopted.

So - some prices:

Meal at an inn: ~4-6 copper
Drink: 1-2 copper


Horse: 20-60 silver pennies (depending on the horse)

(note - as Alcuin points out, this assumes a depressed economy, with much less coinage floating around, when Barliman shells out 30 silver pennies to buy Bill and pay off Merry for his lost ponies)

Take it from there...

[Gordis]

So be it, then. Let us accept these values in the last post.