History Main / CheapGoldCoins

* {{Downplayed}} in ''LightNovel/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'': Rimuru takes the time to go over the various forms of currency used in the world (as well as noting trading in goods is still often used as payment in poorer areas and often used as collateral in richer nations) and notes gold coins are incredibly valuable, with the common pay being in silver for more day-to-day interactions. It's downplayed in that as the leader of Tempest, a rapidly rising economic and technological powerhouse, he's doing a ''lot'' more business in terms of gold with merchants and other nations due to the sheer financial power he has at his disposal and is capable of bringing to the table.

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'', in an interview J.K. Rowling said a gold Galleon was equivalent to "about a fiver". On the other hand, there's nothing to say they're ''made'' of gold as opposed to being simply gold-coloured.
** This isn't entirely consistent. In the first book paying 7 Galleons for a wand is treated like a major purchase and later a school book for the same amount is considered exorbitant, but in a later book Harry pays 10 each for some binoculars and considers it pocket change.
*** To be fair, Harry had considerable funds and was on vacation (often makes people spend money like water), and the prices for the Omnioculars was probably horribly inflated as such things are when sold at really major events. Still true, though. The Weasley's vault didn't have a single Galleon in it, which would be odd if it was worth twenty pounds, much less only five. And Harry's vault is implied to contain a fortune, if not a large one, but if the exchange rate the author names is correct, even a cheap boarding school for seven years would be a good size pile when made of coins "the size of hubcaps", exaggeration not withstanding. Harry's vault is described as holding a "large pile of gold", (implying loose coins, not a neat stack) of gold. If you assume they really are one ounce gold coins (Nicolas Flamel has a lot to answer for), at 20,000 pounds a year for a *cheap* boarding school, a neat stack large enough to pay for seven years at Hogwarts, five feet on a side, would be more than *seven feet tall*.

** Standard for the series. Even the cheapest items (usually VendorTrash) in the game generally cost at least a few gold coins (called Septims), with no lower value currency anywhere to be found. Hilariously, a gold ingot can be sold for more gold coins than that ingot would reasonably be able to produce.

In RealLife gold coins were like hundred-dollar bills; only used for very large transactions[[note]]except, perhaps, for the gold one-dollar coins minted in the middle of the 19th century, which were about the size of a Half Dime, which could be equivalent to anything from 20 to 7,000 modern dollars [[http://web.archive.org/web/20150906195344/https://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/result.php?year_source=1849&amount=1&year_result=2014 depending on your estimate]][[/note]], and most people were unlikely to see very many in their lifetimes. But in many fantasy settings the most basic equipment costs dozens or even hundreds of gold pieces.

* ''TabletopGame/BladesInTheDark'' has a similar aversion. The only currency tracked by the game is Coin. A Coin is a large gold coin, worth a month of unskilled labor or the largest bag of silver coins you can comfortably hold in one hand. The game also mentions that physical Coins are rarely seen and that the coin (much like the British Pound for most of its existence) is primarily a unit of accounting. "Flashing Coin" is a byword for reckless and extravagant spending.

* ''[[VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest Castlevania II]]'': The absolute cheapest, most worthless crap goes for 50 gold.

** Also parodied in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', which suggested that these prices ''only'' apply to adventurers, and are massive mark-ups on what normal people would expect to spend.

* Mainly averted in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', where the "gold coins" issued by the Ankh-Morpork banks actually contain less gold than the equivalent volume of seawater, which ends up being a plot point in ''Literature/MakingMoney''. Justified in the Agatean Empire (the [[FantasyCounterpartCulture fantasy counterpart]] to Imperial China), where gold is a very common metal and is used for low-value coins. Played with when the first Agatean tourist arrives in Ankh-Morpork with a chest full of pure gold coins, and starts paying for meals with enough gold to buy the restaurant, forcing the Ankh-Morporkian authorities to react to the threat to the economy.
** Further justified in that Agatean is on the "Counter Weight" continent. All that gold keeps the Disc balanced. Pretty much any gold rush by the other countries would destroy the Disc as it would fall off the Elephants.
*** This was actually explained as a superstition in the very first book. While there is indeed an abnormal metal density in the Counterweight Continent that balances out the Disc, the metal in question is not gold but Octiron, a highly magical mineral, and most of it is buried far too deep in the crust to be mined. Gold is 'only' about as common as copper, there.
*** Gold is ''so'' common there that they often use it as an alternative to lead for roofing just because it's prettier. The coins only have value because the central banks back them with silver.

* Almost averted in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', where one gold coin equals 100 silver coins or 10,000 copper coins, with two copper coins being enough for an ordinary flagon of ale. In real life, the respective metals' prices ratio is about 427:8:1, so the balance is still a bit off comparatively.
** The last statement should be disregarded. The silver-to-copper ratio has historically fluctuated between 0.03 and 0.01 and from the moment we had the ability to purify gold the gold-to-silver ration has never been worse then 10:1. Also, as of June 2020 the ratios are gold-to-silver 96.72:1 and silver-to-copper 103.87:1. Ironically making Dragon Age Origins monetary system more similar to reality 11 years after it came out then at any other point in human history.

* With the conquest of the Boer republics and their valuable mines in 1902, gold captured from the Dutch and Afrikaans-operated mines flooded the British markets and the Gold Sovereign (a 1-pound coin) became an everyday item, possibly making Edwardian Britain one of the few RealLife examples of this trope. [[RealityEnsues On the other hand,]] the proliferation of cheap gold meant that the value of the pound fell dramatically, causing prices to inflate by a third and the value of wages to fall by 13%. Nowadays, the Sovereign is a prized bullion coin, valued both by collectors and investors, and it's not uncommon to see Edwardian Sovereigns in good condition sell for hundreds to even thousands of pounds.

** The last statement should be disregarded. The silver to copper ratio has historically fluctuated between 0.03 and 0.01 and from the moment we had the ability to purify gold the gold to silver ration has never been worse then 10:1. Also, as of June 2020 the ratios are gold-to-silver 96,72:1 and silver-to-copper 103,87:1. Ironically making Dragon Age Origins monetary system more similar to reality 11 years after it came out then at any other point in human history.

In RealLife gold coins were like hundred-dollar bills; only used for very large transactions[[note]]except, perhaps, for the gold one-dollar coins minted in the middle of the 19th century, which were about the size of a Half Dime, which could be equivalent to anything from 20 to 7,000 modern dollars [[http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/result.php?year_source=1849&amount=1&year_result=2014 depending on your estimate]][[/note]], and most people were unlikely to see very many in their lifetimes. But in many fantasy settings the most basic equipment costs dozens or even hundreds of gold pieces.

* ''TabletopGame/FlyingCircus'' subverts this. Whilst gold coins (referred to as Thaler) are the standard currency in the game, a single Thaler is worth a lot of money in-universe - about a few months pay for an unskilled labourer.

* When king Mansa Musa went on pilgrimage to Mecca in the 1320s, [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa#Islam_and_pilgrimage_to_Mecca he caused an economic crisis due to how much gold he spread around on the way there.]] When he learned of it, he bought the gold back.

The most common gold coins of the era were worth around six shillings (a bit under a third of a pound) or more, so for most people, one (generic) gold coin would represent at least a few weeks' earnings, if not a few months'. You would not use gold to do your grocery shopping. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the mid-13th century gold coinage wasn't even minted in Western Europe-- the primary coin used in daily life was the silver penny,[[note]]which was for the longest time the ''only'' coin other than its denominations the half-penny and farthing[[/note]] which had a purchasing value of about 15 USD as of 2020[[note]]From "Daily Life in the Middle Ages", by Paul B Newman, written in 2001, giving a value of 10 USD[[/note]].

The most common gold coins of the era were worth around six shillings (a bit under a third of a pound) or more, so for most people, one (generic) gold coin would represent at least a few weeks' earnings, if not a few months'. You would not use gold to do your grocery shopping. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the mid-13th century gold coinage wasn't even minted in Western Europe-- the main coin was the silver penny[[note]]which was for the longest time the ''only'' coin other than its denominations the half-penny and farthing[[/note]], which had a purchasing value of about 15 USD as of 2020[[note]]From "Daily Life in the Middle Ages", by Paul B Newman, written in 2001, giving a value of 10 USD[[/note]].

For a basis of comparison, a "cheap sword for a peasant" cost six pence (1/40th of a pound[[note]]i.e. a pound weight of sterling silver[[/note]]) in the 1340s. In the 14th century an unskilled or semiskilled laborer working for wages-only would have earned around 1 to 2 pounds per year (a servant working for board plus wages might have earned as little as two shillings - a tenth of a pound). A middle-class urban family might earn 5-10 pounds per year.[[note]]Prices from ''Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages'' by Christopher Dyer.[[/note]]
The most common gold coins of the era were worth around six shillings (a bit under a third of a pound) or more, so for most people, one (generic) gold coin would represent at least a few weeks' earnings, if not a few months'. You would not use gold to do your grocery shopping. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the mid-13th century gold coinage wasn't even minted in Western Europe-- the main coin was the silver penny[[note]]which was for the longest time the ''only'' coin other than its denominations the half-penny and farthing[[/note]], which had a purchasing value of about 10 USD[[note]]From "Daily Life in the Middle Ages", by Paul B Newman[[/note]].

* Subverted in ''Literature/TheDarkProfitSaga'', dwarven alchemists figured out how to make gold, collapsing the gold standard and leading to the adoption of the giltin, a fiat currency backed by the trade guilds with gilded tin coins and banknotes.

This is most likely to give players some point of familiarity by making the cost similar to what it would be in dollars, or yen in Japanese games (which might be why they tend to be worse with it, as the yen has been consistently worth about $0.01 for quite some time).

* Mainly averted in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'', where the "gold coins" issued by the Ankh-Morpork banks actually contain less gold than the equivalent volume of seawater, which ends up being a plot point in ''Discworld/MakingMoney''. Justified in the Agatean Empire (the [[FantasyCounterpartCulture fantasy counterpart]] to Imperial China), where gold is a very common metal and is used for low-value coins. Played with when the first Agatean tourist arrives in Ankh-Morpork with a chest full of pure gold coins, and starts paying for meals with enough gold to buy the restaurant, forcing the Ankh-Morporkian authorities to react to the threat to the economy.