Longevity of bone

On reflection, I think I'm going to have denominations, after all - three of them, specifically:

- Cents are the lowest-value coins, and are the ordinary disks I've been talking about thus far. Unlike before, their value would be independent of size, and the typical price of one simple meal (~$5). The name is supposedly derived from this being a slice of the central section of the antler - nothing to do with hundred.

- Cusps are the medium-value coins, and are the tips of the antler's points. Their value is that of 6 cents (~$30).

- Coronets are the high-value coins, and are the knobbly bits at the base of an antler. Their value is that of 6 cusps (~$200), and the equivalent of several days' wages. By which I don't so much mean that people get paid wages, per se, but that an item which it takes an artisan several days to craft might cost this.

The latter two words are real-world hunters' jargon for these parts of an antler, apparently; the first one is just me being whimsical. The advantage is that these coins will naturally be produced in the appropriate ratios, since each antler has a single coronet, several cusps, and a lot of "beam", that being the jargon for the central section. And, if I posit that they use most of the beam for purposes other than making small change, it also reduces the total amount of money floating around.

If I estimate that reduction at an order of magnitude, and the effect of the other types of wear and loss mentioned by Madrugada as up to another order of magnitude, then I now have between 1/10 and 1 kg per capita, the equivalent of between a pound and 5 kg for a human. That seems a lot more reasonable.

That makes a whole lot of sense. That's really, really good.

Another note: The coronet coins would suffer the least wear, but also get the least use. The cusp coins would be more fragile — chipping or splitting of the tip is the most likely damage.

edited 31st Aug '12 9:07:52 AM by Madrugada

Thanks!

The presumed fact that coronets suffer less wear is actually a good thing, since they only differ from cents in having a knobbly surface. Once they are worn smooth to the point of no longer being clearly distinguishable from cents, they thus effectively become cents, losing most of their value. So, the longevity might just end up to be about the same, in each case.

Do you happen to have an opinion on my colouration idea?

Adding color is interesting.

It could be purely personal — that the presence or absence of color has no real effect on the value, but some hunters like to dye the coins they produce and others can't be bothered. It could serve as a source identifier; one village dyes all the coins they produce yellow with onion skin dye, while another village makes theirs blue with an indigo-analogue, or some such. The reputation of the village could have some effect on the unofficial value. Or there are other things you can do with it.

That's different from the take I had in mind, but all the more interesting for that.

And it goes well with Mc Kitten's earlier suggestion that coins which already evidence high levels of wear might be considered somewhat less valuable than ones which look brand-new. So, on top of the base value of each denomination, there would be some variation in value depending on the quality and condition of each individual coin. If I go with the money-worn-as-decoration idea, that would certainly make sense.

Okay, that's a wrap, unless someone else contributes some entirely new aspect, i think.

I'm not sure how well colouring would work. Antlers are made of Horn not bone, which is somewhat different in makeup (although chemically similar). It is (not coincidentally) the stuff the rims of horn-rimmed glasses, or horn buttons are made from. It is very dense and smooth, painting certainly wouldn't work, dyeing might. A question about denominations though, the need for that would suggest that money is being used quite a lot, which also suggest a culture with significant mobility and division of labour. In typical medieval villages for example, money wouldn't get used at all unless dealing with outsiders. People far more often simply worked on a debt system, since there is no real need for formalized contracts or money in a small close-knit group. When everybody knows everybody else (and sees them on a daily basis) fraud and the like become virtually impossible. Money would mostly be used to trade with visiting merchants, if a village is big enough to rate a resident merchant, he'd quite often operate on store credit when trading with villagers.

Antler can be dyed. Caribou antler slices dyed red Dyed green, with food coloring. Dyed blue, also with food coloring.

Also, the idea that "medieval people" didn't really use coins or that the medieval economy was largely barter and trade is faulty. Coinage was in common use in medieval times: common enough that license to mint coins was a valuable consideration from a ruler; that the 'moneyer' (the man who was granted that license) was a man of status; and that clipping, counterfeiting, and the debasement of coinage was a problem deemed worthy of attention.

An article on the medieval 'moneyer' from the British Numismatic Journal, printed sometime in the 1930's apparently.

Of note is that "That the moneyer still struck the coin with his own hands in the tenth' century may, I think, be inferred from the clause in the 'Greatley Laws of AEthelstan,' promulgated between 925 and 935, which provided as the penalty for forgery the amputation of the moneyer's hand and its exposure over his mint-smithy. Such a law would hardly be made if the moneyer, whose hand was to be cut off, were not doing the handiwork himself."

A forum thread discussing the various aspects of 'moneyers'

edited 31st Aug '12 1:43:21 PM by Madrugada

You'd have to give me a scientific source for the claim that antlers are made of horn (keratin), since several wikipedia articles which touch on the topic clearly state that both horns and antlers are primarily bone, and that whereas horns have a surface layer of keratin, antlers do not even have that. The only fully keratinous structure present in mammals is found elsewhere, namely as nails, claws, hooves, and whatever other analogs there are.

My limited personal experience agrees with that. Antlers may look a little shiny, but have a much rougher small-scale texture than bovine horns regardless. Not quite as rough as some skeletal bones, to be sure, but the difference is one of degrees, and, by my guess, as much the result of the conditions to which antlers are exposed while internal bones are not, as that of differing compositions. So, for now, I'm going to disregard everything you derive from that notion.

As to the frequency of use, you may be right in that there would be none at the village-level whatsoever. On the other hand, the delineation between a cash system and a debt system seems somewhat artificial, because whether something is a coin or a debt marker is ultimately nothing but a matter of perspective. Either way, I don't have to make that decision for now, as the primary use for money I envision is indeed the weekly/seasonal "trysts", i.e. the markets in the capital towns of each region.

Cheers, I'll definitely have a look at those references.

You are correct, kassy. Antlers are bone, horns are bone and keratin. National Park Service answer (found here):

And a nice concise explanation of the growth mechanism of antlers is here.

Great pictures here.

edited 31st Aug '12 2:20:43 PM by Madrugada

@kassyopeia Well, if you've handled them, then you know what i mean. Chemically, bones are mostly keratin as well (with added mineral deposits) it's mostly a question of how solidly keratinized the tissue is. I suspect you'll even find quite significant differences in hardness and smoothness between individuals. Nonetheless, as i mentioned before, painting probably won't work, dyeing will.

Regarding the coin use issue, there is a big difference between rural life in medieval times and city life. No, even back then, it wasn't all villages and peasants. Merchants and artisans in cities needed money, as did governments, traders, mercenaries and lots of other people. But none of that applies to rural life. As for debt markers vs. money, my point was that it mostly worked without any formalized contract, be that in the form of money, debt markers or signed papers. If villager Bob needed a Horse shod by village smith John, but didn't at the moment have anything to pay for it (either because he didn't have anything or because John didn't need anything) Bob would instead promise John to pay with part of his harvest in a couple of months, they'd shake hands on it and the deal was done. There was no need for any formalized token of debt, because if Bob were to refuse paying John, everybody in the village would know a day or two later, and no-one would make any more deals with Bob. Depending on culture and time period, a whole village would even pretty much pool resources, most commonly for example during harvest time, where the whole village would work in all of the fields until the harvest was done. Yes, communism is a lot older than Marx. Anyway, point being: money is great, even necessary, if a great number of people trade with each other, every individual trading with a great deal of others he might not even know, and he might not ever see again after one deal. If however a small number of people are constantly exchanging wares and services with each other (and only each other) there is no need for money.

Bones are mostly calcium. Keratin is a protein. They're completely different. The structures they form are completely different Bone forms a solid unit. Keratin forms plates or flakes.

There was very little isolated rural holding in medieval times. Even small villages used coins. And formalized recognition of debt was a big thing, with contracts and liens and such quite common.

edited 31st Aug '12 2:41:43 PM by Madrugada

Wikipedia: The inorganic composition of bone (bone mineral) is formed from carbonated hydroxyapatite (Ca₁₀(PO₄)₆(OH)₂) with lower crystallinity. [...] The organic part of matrix is mainly composed of Type I collagen."

A simple matter of conflating or confusing the similar-sounding "collagen" and "keratin", perhaps?

Hmmm... as we're already talking about horns and the like, I'm considering making my giraffes one-horned, since they are my world's version of unicorns in most other ways already, and also really do have horns, of a sort.

However, if I'm not mistaken, there actually aren't any mammals which have a single horn growing from that part of the head. There are one-horned rhinos and narwhals, but their horns emerge from the oral/nasal region (because it's actually a tusk, in the case of the whale), which wouldn't do at all. And there are plenty of ruminants which have horns growing from the proper region of the skull, but those are always lateral, never central. And it's not just mammals - triceratops famously shows us both patterns at once, a central horn on the nose and two lateral horns above the eyes.

Is there some non-obvious (to me, at any rate) reason that this has to be so, given the fundamental tetrapodal skull design? In other words, are unicorns not just legendary, but genuine anatomical nonsense?

edited 31st Aug '12 3:30:19 PM by kassyopeia

@kassyopeia Ah right i always confuse those proteins. My inorg. Chem Prof always used to say anything that can't survive 10000° is rubbish anyway.

@Madrugada Villages didn't have to be physicall isolated. They were socially isolated, and except from some travelling merchants, there wasn't a lot of commerce going on either. Heck, people weren't allowed to leave their villages (permanently) without permission from their liege.

Mc Kitten, that's simply not true. Serfs were bound to the land and couldn't leave permanently. Most villagers were freeholders. There were very few places that didn't see regular trade, if not from large merchants, at least from traveling peddlars. And those guys would not be interested in sacks of grain or chickens or pigs in payment for their goods. They wanted coins.

I don't know about any one else but that kind of remains me of the currency used in the rather warped comic Orc Stain.

The link kind of said it all.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/04/how-does-one-invent-an-economy-based-on-orc-genitalia/

My aunt told me a story about how my mother didn't know that money even existed until a fair bit into school. Reason being, she didn't need money to go buy candy or stuff, because they knew who her father was anyway, and could just ask him later, and furthermore wasn't always paid in money. The town had about 2500 people living there.

While not exactly an analogue of the trading back in the older days, it does show that that kind of informal trading did live alongside coins for a long while, and that it's certainly possible to have a culture that favours either or both types, even in a modern world.

What matters isn't really how it worked in the real world, but how you want to it to work in your world.

And that remark about communism, the actual ideology was followed a lot closer to its intent in villages than any country ever has.

If you're creating your own species, what would stop you from giving them a central horn? I think the reason has something to do with how the skull is built up, which makes it far less likely that it would be a central horn, but according to that link, the giraffe horns have a unique placement anyway. If nothing else it could be two horns that eventually grew closer and finally merged somehow during a long evolutionary process.

Indeed. I don't actually believe that Madrugada's and Mc Kitten's notions about how things generally were are necessarily mutually exclusive, but rather that things worked differently in different places. Considering that medieval money was for the most part made of precious metals, I don't have any trouble imagining that there were out-of-the-way regions in which people simply didn't have enough money to use it on a daily basis - not really as a matter of poverty, but as a matter of a liquidity shortage, if you will. Contrariwise, a village in a more densely populated region with its own silver mine nearby would of course quickly adopt the custom of using money (rather than barter or debt) for most kinds of interactions - it's more convenient, plus it's the civilized thing to do, from their point of view.

Again, I say "indeed".

Like the first half versus the second half of "Animal Farm". I tend to refer to it as "collectivism" rather than "communism" at that level, in my head - not sure if that accords with general usage or not.

What might stop me is that, once again as a matter of laziness, I'd prefer to keep my "mogs" (Mammal-annalOGS) as close to their terrestrial counterparts as possible, i.e. to keep any changes necessitated by but not strictly relevant to the plot as cosmetic as possible.

The only other, to me, acceptable option would be to design and figure out a new critter in its entirety, and that's in these cases not worth the effort.

Anyway, your suggestion of fused horns may be just the thing. Thanks!

Mc Kitten, I'd like to apologize for my tone in those last couple of posts. I was unwarrantedly snippy at you. The only thing I can offer as an excuse is that for some reason I was feeling off-kilter yesterday. And that's not good enough.

@Madrugada Don't worry, i don't mind heated discussions. I'm hard to insult. Serfs were pretty much owned like slaves (with very few more rights), but that is not the point. In the feudal systems, people were bound to their liege, even a member of the nobility would not, technically be allowed to move (although that's hardly going to happen with landed nobility anyway). Depending on place and era, that could even go so far as vassals having to ask for permission to marry, especially if it could potentially create inheritance disputes (obviously, this one only really mattered for the nobility). Serfs were notably different in that they were bound to the land they lived on, not in a personal union with their liege. England is not a good example of medieval culture due to the magna carta.

@kassyopeia Of course they're not incompatible. Money is thousands of years older than the medieval era after all. ;) Even international trade is very old (although back then, money was pretty much just a system of standard weighted pieces of precious metals). Even during roman or egyptian times, if you lived in a big city, you needed money. Or if you were trading with a large number of people or even importing and exporting goods. Or nobles who bought and sold land needed money. But peasants, who rarely, if ever, traded with people they didn't personally know and see on a daily basis, didn't really need money. And didn't really get any either, because, as it doesn't grow on trees, there was hardly any influx of money to rural areas. Even taxes would be paid in produce, often the only source of money were occasional visiting traders and trips to the nearest city market. (Although the closer to a city a village lies, the easier access to money they had. But "close" is not a big distance if you have to walk) And the money earned that way was mostly saved for buying products that couldn't be made locally.

On another note, what gets called communism currently is an unholy mess. It's different in different countries, and has little to do with what Marx originally wrote in any of them. Collectivism however is a term for a whole category of political and economic system, communism just being (usually) one of them.

On your coinage. If your making it from antlers you could have them be decoratively carved disks that receive dye like maddy suggested early. I am sorry I haven't gotten back to you yet on bone tool and item preperation I got distracted.

No worries, I did some background reading on my own and have a rough idea what's involved now. If you come across something that you think might be helpful, by all means let me know about it, but there's no more need to expend any effort.

Oh its not a problem I enjoy doing research like this to be honest.

Having read the essay on Early-Medieval European "moneyers" linked upthread by Madrugada and several 'pedia articles on early forms of coinage in other parts of the world, I'm quite encouraged that this scheme should work well enough. There are plenty of precedents both for non-metallic currencies and for state control extending barely beyond defining the denominations and their basic design, leaving the detail work, the production of money, and its circulation to anyone who had the means to acquire the necessary raw materials as well as the skill to turn them into coins. Sometimes, such people were required to first obtain individual permission (which probably involved paying charges and/or/aka bribes), sometimes not. In those cases, valuation must have been determined predominantly by supply and demand (and tradition), and not by any official oversight. Sounds good enough to me.

One other historical analogue to look into: the shell money used in various parts of the world. It would have many of the same benefits and drawbacks of antler.