About Coins

There are three common coins in the kingdom on Morcron produced by the royal mints. They are the Harving, Florance and Ducket. The Harving, commonly called a "Penny", is the most common coin and is made from copper. Next is the Florance, commonly called a "Noble". They are made of Silver. 50 Harvings have the same value as one Florance. Lastly is the Ducket, also known as a "Crown". Duckets are rather rare and valuable, being made from Gold . A single Ducket is equal in value to 2 Florances or 100 Harvings. Each of these three coins are about the size of the American Quarter, weighing about 5 grams, It is very common practice among common folk who live in cities to have Harvings cut into "Half Pennies" and "Quarter Pennies".

• 1 Ducket "Crown" (Gold) = 2 Florances "Nobles" (Silver) or 100 Harvings "Pennies" (Copper)
• 1 Florance "Noble" (Silver) = 50 Harvings "Pennies" (Copper)

Medieval Work Standards

The concept of the eight hour work day or a five day work week is a modern concept. Throughout much of history, most people worked every day of their life. Most workers also worked for nearly 10 hours a day. Most jobs were very near to one's home and most people walked no more than 5 or 10 minutes to work each day. Able bodied men worked, and women married to stay home with children and take care of the residence. Families relied upon older boys and mom to take care of nearly every responsibility of the home such as repairs, cleaning, cooking and heating. Unlike today there were very few laws that protected the safety of workers. Often the only thing that encouraged lords to look after the safety of workers was the financial hardship he would experience from loosing a vassal's labor. Even worse, individuals had little choice of what job they did. If you were lucky in such a system, your father would manage to get you apprenticed into a trade that was safer, easier and more respected than others. Most often a person was expected to do the same labor their father did.

Standard "Wages"

Few individuals who worked were paid an actual monetary wage. Most people traded the goods their labors produced, or took payment for services in goods. A lord had two basic options as to how he might have his vassals conduct trade. The first was the traditional feudal system where peasants and surfs did their labors, gave a share of their produce to their lord, and traded or used the rest to meet their needs. Another option allowed currency where vassals bought and sold goods and services with coin, and had to pay their lord's taxes in coin. Though this system was good for lords in that it gave them coin with which to buy any good or services they desired, it also forced a lord to pay people working for him. The ability of vassals to earn, own and acquire currency also empowered them to move up the social ladder, and in time, wealthy vassals could become more wealthy, influential and powerful than lords. Most lords adopted a mixed approach promoting a currency economy in cities that facilitated the production of quality goods and a currency tax base, while keeping peasants and surfs in the country producing basic goods like food and lumber.

In instances where a worker must be paid in coin to perform labor, here is a table that represents average wages.

How were average wages determined?

This was by far the most complicated thing I've done for this system. The first thing I decided was to look for a base equivalence of coin to labor similar to those used in the Labor Theory of Value. This turned into a monstrous equation which took into account all the average mining considerations for how much earth and metal a miner could expect to mine in a month, the weight of coins, the weight of various units of metal, smelting and minting efforts, etc. I quickly became bogged down in the difference between weight and mass due to most measurements being in grams and most figures I have on the various metals per Unit size being in pounds. Weight and Mass conversions are odd. This got very strange when you realize that gold weighs twice as much as silver and coins sizes were most often found by weight. Eventually I had so simply guestimate the size of a coin being 1 50,000 th of a cubic ft. This means that gold and silver coins of the same size have very different weights. I also quickly discovered that people could mine gold and silver in much greater quantities than I had anticipated. I tried to reach a wage scale that balanced how much raw material people could extract and work into coins, and a number that adequately took profit of the crown into consideration. I was also very worried that if I made wage figures too generous we would have some outrageously large price numbers to deal with. If I made the figures too low, anybody who managed to establish a gold or silver mine would become outrageously wealthy in very short order.

Is it possible to mint your own coins ?

Yes and no...

The physical minting process is relatively easy. Any blacksmith and Blacksmithy will be a good start. From there, a special set of Minting Dies are required to stamp the coins. These Minting Dies can only be made to produce authentic looking coins if crafted by a Grand Master engraver. A set of Minting Dies can be used to fabricate as many as 10,000 coins. Aside from making your own Minting Dies (which is illegal), they can be obtained or purchased by special arrangement with the government. Once these things are had, you need the metals. The blacksmith heats the metals and forms them to coins using the Minting Dies. A minter can produce about 200 coins in a day. ( Thus breaking down the Die after about 2 months). If you want to make a Minting Die that creates a different type of coin from the Harving, Florance or Ducket, any blacksmith or engraver can do it. If the Dies are not made by a Grand Master engraver these coins will be obviously inferior. Minting any coin outside of the legal standard three using proper Dies in proper metal quantities with the kings blessing is illegal.

Note: That though raw gold is valued at twice raw silver, raw copper is NOT 1/100 th the price of gold. It's actually about 1/330th. Copper coins are closer to the value of gold coins than raw copper is to raw gold is due to the labor and expenses of the minting process.