History WorthlessYellowRocks / Literature

* ''Literature/The13Clocks'' featured a woman who was cursed to cry jewels - once word spread about her, people came from far and wide to tell her sad stories and make her cry. Unfortunately, over time she [[IncrediblyLamePun flooded]] the economy with jewels and her town collapsed once cobblestones became more valuable than jewelry.

* In the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' novel ''The Veiled Threat'', Starscream is shown to be bribing terrorists by using his [[BizarreAlienBiology internal matter converter]] to produce massive amounts of gold coins. The other Decepticons are baffled that the loyalties of humans can be won by such simple and, from their perspective, worthless bits of metal. They claim that Cybertronians are superior as they only value what is useful for continued functioning, like energon. Considering the behavior of some of the human terrorists within the novel, [[HumansAreBastards they may be right]].

* In ''Literature/IllegalAliens'', the galactic currency is based on Thulium, because "Gold is prettier, Silver makes a better conductor" and a number of other reasons.
* [[PlayingWithATrope Played straight]] and {{inverted|Trope}} with the Modsva in Creator/PeterFHamilton's ''Literature/TheNightsDawnTrilogy''. The Modsva live in massive "disk cities" made out of old asteroids that survived their sun's expansion into a Red Supergiant. Since all the system's planets were destroyed, and every last bit of the original asteroids where mined out and used to build the disk cities, the only way the Modsva, lacking FTL travel, can gain new resources is to mine their sun for hydrogen and then use fusion to transform it into other elements. Since Iron is the heaviest element that can be created without a supernova, it's considered the most valuable, with one character proclaiming that an FTL drive would be worth more than "The sun's mass in iron". However, since carbon is much easier to create through fusion, and the Modsva have the industrial capacity to convert it into diamond, it's commonly used in a number of Modsva technologies, with Iron being limited to the upper class.
* Water Elementals in J. Scott Savage's ''Literature/{{Farworld}}'' series place value on an object because of its craftsmanship. An old boot holds equal value to an expensive necklace (or at least, they are judged against each other based on craftsmanship, and not the obvious value), where a lump of gold is just a shiny rock. While this much is understandable, they go on to confound the other characters as well as the reader when they show that they would rather throw a 'valuable' item back into the water than give it to someone without compensation, regardless of whether or not they were ever going to keep the objects.
* In ''Literature/TheSecondJungleBook'', the story "The King's Ankus" involves Mowgli coming upon a huge treasure guarded by a cobra. Unimpressed by the gems and gold in general, and with the cobra being without poison due to old age, he takes the only thing he finds useful - a short spear with a hook, made of something really strong and light - that just happens to be covered in gold and jewels. Not long afterwards, he learns it's an ivory [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_goad ankus]] - and is immediately so disgusted by a tool used for torturing elephants he throws it away, saying he doesn't want anything with Hathi's blood on it. Later, he and Bagheera find themselves tracking it down again - as the man who found it was killed to steal it, as was the thief, etc. To prevent further deaths Mowgli gives it back to the cobra and recommends it to find a young successor to guard the treasure.
* The "valuable treasures as common as dirt" variation is OlderThanRadio: In Creator/{{Voltaire}}'s ''Literature/{{Candide}}'' (1759), the title character ends up in El Dorado, the mythical "land of gold". Rubies, emeralds and other precious gems are just ordinary rocks there, and Candide sees kids playing with particularly large gemstones during their school break in the same way children would play with pebbles anywhere else in the world. Later, the King allows him to leave with a large abundance of these stones, but is perplexed why he wants them.
* "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" by Creator/FScottFitzgerald. Percy is the inheritor of a large diamond mine, and when he went to look he also found on the property a mountain made of the titular diamond. He knows ''darn'' well that if he just dumps all that on the market, it'll make the bottom fall out of the diamond market. So he keeps his sales small and very spread out -and his methods to ''keep'' it secret get pretty horrifying. Conning slaves into staying slaves is the least of it.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** In the [[FantasyCounterpartCulture Agatean]] [[ImperialChina Empire]], gold coins are used for small change and gold itself is used in place of lead for everything from roofing to plumbing, while ''real'' money is made from paper and backed by silver. This comes as a shock to Rincewind for two reasons: First, because if such a currency were ever implemented in Ankh-Morpork the Guild of Artificers would promptly become the (highly-successful) Guild of Forgers, and second, paper can't be ''that'' valuable... right? In the first two books of the series this is the cause of a RunningGag where an Agatean tourist obliviously spreads chaos in his wake by paying with what to him is small change but to the locals is more than the business is worth.
*** Later, it's revealed that it is, in fact, about as in-demand (and thus as valuable) as it can be in a place where a corrupt, wasteful bureaucracy rules with an iron fist.
** Played with in the later ''Literature/MakingMoney'', which introduces paper money to Ankh-Morpork anyways. Moist von Lipwig, as the new Master of the Mint, says the Bank has a pile of "useless metal" in the vaults that needs clearing out and that potatoes are worth more than gold if viewed dispassionately, since food will do much more in times of poverty than gold will in times of starvation. He also neatly sidesteps the counterfeiting issue pointed out above by employing the city's best stamp forger (since people have already begun using postage stamps as a ''de facto'' currency) to design the city's new banknotes (with the intention that he will make them more complex than anyone else can copy).
* In ''Literature/TheTwentyOneBalloons'', a man discovers an island where diamonds are so common that they just lie around on the ground. He's sensible enough to realize what would happen if this became public, so he instead colonizes the island with a small number of other families. They collect a boat-load of diamonds each year to sell off in secret, allowing them to live in luxury on the island. But on the island itself, the rocks are so common that diamond cuff links are simply given away.

* Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold's ''Literature/{{Vorkosigan|Saga}}'':
** Miles relates how at the end of the "Time of Isolation", when the planet Barrayar was rediscovered, one of his ancestors thought he could make a fortune by trading for precious stones with the galactics. The jewels were synthetic, the market was soon flooded and Miles's ancestor lost a fortune instead.
** His mother Cordelia inverts it in an earlier book, wondering why the Barrayarans value gold so much when it's only vaguely useful in some electronic capacities.[[note]]Ignoring the number one reason for gold's value, aside from rarity -- its ''malleability'' and softness. A single ounce of gold can be beaten into a sheet measuring roughly 5 meters on a side. You could do anything you wanted to gold -- stretch it, beat it, melt it -- and it retained its nature. This is why alchemists believed gold was linked to immortality.[[/note]]
** In ''Captain Vorpatril's Alliance'', Ivan and others are trapped in a slowly flooding room with many rare treasures. After rescue, Ivan describes it as spending the night "contemplating the true nature of wealth." However, at the end, the ''barrells'' of gold are considered worth a ton in Betan dollars. WordofGod admitted in the aforementioned book, she should have realized that gold was rare universe-wide.
* In Creator/DianaWynneJones's ''Literature/{{Hexwood}}'', the offworlders are deliberately keeping Earth ignorant and backward so they can buy Earth flint very cheaply. They use it to make portals and no other mineral will do, and if the people of Earth found out how valuable it was they would raise the price dramatically.
* "Onions and Garlic", with one rendition by Eric A. Kimmel: There is a story of a man finding an island where diamonds and other precious jewels were very common, but the food was very bland. He happened to have some onions with him, which he traded (as well as teaching planting and growing techniques) for a small fortune in diamonds. Hearing of this success, another man found the island, and traded garlic for the most valuable thing the natives had. He returned home, opened the chest, and found it full of onions.
* A variation of "Onions and Garlic" also appears in the Literature/ArabianNights - a poor man went to the Caliph (who had never eaten poor men's food before) with a cart of onions. The Caliph loved them, and rewarded the poor man by filling his cart with gold. Another poor man had the idea - "if the great Caliph was so impressed by onions, what will happen when I introduce him to garlic?" The Caliph loved garlic too, and ordered the poor man to be rewarded by filling his cart with the greatest treasure in his kingdom... onions. In much of the Middle East, water and arable land are both precious commodities. Vegetables might really be worth more than gold in some places.
* Creator/DavidEddings:
** ''Literature/TheRedemptionOfAlthalus'' does this one when the titular thief, in the middle of a stream of bad luck, breaks into a strong room (this in the world's ''Bronze age'') and opens a chest reputedly jammed with cash. He finds it full of worthless scraps of paper and leaves. Only to be told in a tavern the next day of the owner's confusion at having come in the next morning to find someone had broken into his strong room, opened his safe, tossed all his ''Bronze age paper money'' in a pile on the floor and left.
** In another of Eddings' series, ''Literature/TheBelgariad'', the Marag people were wiped out by the Tolnedrans (a [[PlanetOfHats Race of Hats]] based on Imperial Rome and phenomenally greedy) ostensibly because of the Marag habit of ritualistic cannibalism, but largely because their streams were literally lined with gold. The Marags, having a barter economy and being phenomenally xenophobic, didn't care about the gold. In a KarmicTwistEnding of sorts, after the genocide, the Marags' gold-filled country becomes so overrun with vengeful ghosts that no one can set foot there without going insane.
** Belgarath also has a vast hoard of gold, which he mined himself, and which he almost never needs. Although he could create all the gold he wants, he doesn't do so, partly perhaps because it's less fun, but probably because doing so would gradually devalue the metal.
** Of course Belgarath also places a huge diamond [[spoiler:under a step in his tower]] to see how long it would take to wear down to dust, then forgets he placed it there anyway.
** During their travels, Belgarath and Garion encounter an alchemist who ''really can'' turn lead into gold. Unfortunately, the chemicals he uses cost more than the gold is worth (he's trying to refine the process). While talking to him, they learn that a former colleague managed to turn glass into a substance that was as strong as steel, but still transparent. Belgarath points out to the alchemist that the materials for glass are literally dirt-cheap, and can be molded into any shape. A process that could make it unbreakable would be more valuable than all the gold in the world. The alchemist is suddenly ''very'' upset at the [[NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup missed opportunity]].
** In the David Eddings series ''The Dreamers'', the four gods hire armies with gold, except for Aracia. Queen Trenicia of the Isle of Akalla won't accept gold- she refers to it as 'yellow lead' and took gems as payment instead.
* In the ''Isaac Asimov's Robot City'' series, the robots of the eponymous city see gold as a very weak metal, and mostly useless. They don't even need it for its utility as a conductor, since Asimov's "[[AppliedPhlebotinum positronics]]" are said to be superior to mere electronics and instead employ a sponge of platinum-irridium alloy. However, seeing as how gold never corrodes, they ended up finding a use for it: eating utensils for the humans that visit.
* In ''Literature/TheTraders'', a Terminus trader is surprised that some planet wants gold as ransom for a captured person - for him it is "old fashioned", although he has no trouble understanding the possible uses of this fact (he can synthesize significant amounts of it). Later, he is trying to convince a nobleman of that world to buy technology. He sells him a device to transform iron into gold as part of a blackmail scheme of the supposedly pious nobleman. The man is forced to buy all of the trader's goods at far more than their normal price (two shipfuls of ''tin'') in order to keep video footage of him drooling over gold from being broadcast to the citizens. He later tells a friend how laughable it was because it's just not cost-effective to transmute metals, due to the excessive power consumption in the process. The Galactic Empire is shown to use ''iridium'' the way we use silver.
* At one point in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1'', the Book muses at length about how most of the proposed solutions to Earth's unhappiness have involved the movement of small green pieces of paper. It considers this odd, as generally speaking, it isn't the small green pieces of paper who are unhappy. As brought up in ''Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse'', all forms of currency are ultimately proven to be either pointless or useless.
* Played with in ''Aliens: The Other White Meat''. A dimensional traveler named Blackbeard found a universe where gold was so common as to be lying around on the ground, but chewing gum was viewed as an incredibly rare treasure. Naturally, his response was to buy large quantities of gum, transport them to that world, and make himself the richest man in history.
* In ''Literature/ThePhantomTollbooth'' jewels are valued just like in the real world, except in Digitopolis. They only care about digging up numbers. Precious stones are tossed in the corner and are considered worse than dross. Of course our heroes realize their value, but are distracted by the arrival of lunch before they can even ask for some souvenirs.
* On a similar note, the underground folk from ''Literature/TheSilverChair'' do value gemstones, but only ''fresh'' ones that are filled with delicious juice. The hard, dry, inedible ones that surface-dwellers hoard are stale and tasteless, hence without value.
* In ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hyperboloid_of_Engineer_Garin The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin]]'', an early Soviet sci-fi novel from the 1920s, the eponymous MadScientist takes over the corrupt United States by offering everyone who asks an endless supply of cheap gold, thus bringing the entire monetary and financial system to its knees (while becoming [[VillainWithGoodPublicity popular with the masses]]). (Since at the time the value of currency was pegged to the value of gold, the devastating effects of a supply of cheap gold are quite believable). It is then up to the brave Communist heroes to foil his plot to TakeOverTheWorld. For those wondering, he got the gold by using his laser-like DeathRay to drill deep beneath the Earth's crust, where there is apparently [[ScienceMarchesOn an entire geological layer composed of gold mixed with mercury]].
* In ''The Water Trader's Dream'', a poem by Robert Priest, aliens trade gold and jewels for water on Earth, a scare and valuable commodity in the galaxy (!).

* In H. B. Fyfe's "In Value Deceived", an alien exploration starship is searching for a way to alleviate the famine on their home world. They make first contact with a human starship on some barren little world. On a tour of the human's ship, they are thunderstruck when they see the hydroponic installations. It's the key to salvation for their people! But of course they feign disinterest. They ask for one as a souvenir. They don't notice the similar disinterest with which the humans ask for an alien heating unit. The one that produces all that pesky ash. Stuff like uranium and gold nuggets. Both aliens and humans are surprised when both parties make quick good-byes after the trade and take off before the trade is regretted. They both think "gee, the other guys act like they cheated us."

* Creator/EEDocSmith:
** Inverted in ''[[Literature/{{Lensman}} Triplanetary]]'', our iron is the most valuable substance in existence for the alien Nevians.
** In one of the later ''Literature/{{Lensman}}'' novels, the hero rescues a BeautifulSlaveGirl and has to explain to her that the [[DiamondsInTheBuff jewels she is wearing]] are worth a considerable amount.
* Shifted a few preciousness brackets over in Raymond E. Feist's ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle''. Midkemia (standard medieval-but-with-magic Earth-clone) is invaded by the Tsurani (vaguely-Pan-Asian-but-mostly-Japanese medieval-but-with-magic Earth-clone) for its ''metal''. Their home world, Kelewan, is an old world which was previously inhabited by at least two intelligent races, who mined out all the metals. Silver used to pay for a meal in a tavern on Midkemia could support a Tsurani family for a year. At the same time, the small, low-quality gems used in lieu of large-denomination coins on Tsuranuanni are so valuable on Midkemia that a Tsurani noble's modest travel chest is enough to set him up comfortably for the rest of his life.
* In the ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' novel ''The Veiled Threat'', Starscream is shown to be bribing terrorists by using his [[BizarreAlienBiology internal matter converter]] to produce massive amounts of gold coins. The other Decepticons are baffled that the loyalties of humans can be won by such simple and, from their perspective, worthless bits of metal. They claim that Cybertronians are superior as they only value what is useful for continued functioning, like energon. Considering the behavior of some of the human terrorists within the novel, [[HumansAreBastards they may be right]].
* Similarly, in Creator/BruceCoville's ''Literature/RodAllbrightAlienAdventures'' series, it's mentioned in the first book that energy credits are galactic society's basic unit of exchange. "Makes more sense than gold," Grakker comments (rather condescendingly) to Rod. "Not much you can do with gold once you've got it."
* In Nick Hornby's ''Literature/HighFidelity'', Rob is contacted by a woman who wants to sell an entire collection of rare and valuable records for a pittance. {{Justified|Trope}} in that the woman's husband just left her for his much-younger secretary, and asked his wife to sell the collection to finance his new life with the secretary. She's deliberately trying to short the husband. [[spoiler:Rob can't go through with it in the end.]] This sequence was done for the movie as well; it didn't make the theatrical version, but is in the deleted scenes on the home releases.
* In the ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' book ''Literature/CreatureOfHavoc'', the PC is a monster, and so gets to kill several adventuring parties in the early part of the book. If they choose to investigate the corpses, they find some shiny metal disks, but can't imagine what purpose they might serve and so throw them away.
* In "The Iron Standard", by Creator/HenryKuttner, a spaceship crew is starving on Venus because gold and silver are too common there, the society is too conservative to buy any of their devices, and the main medium of exchange is iron, which they only have as alloys. They end up giving away (there are rules against trading without a license, but the right to give presents is sacred) stimulants, threatening the stability of the system and forcing the ruling monopolists to bribe them with enough money to survive until they can go back to Earth.
* In ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'', the Mud People have gold treasuries (and possibly mines) on their territory, but consider it worthless because it's too soft for spears.
* Thomas More's ''Literature/{{Utopia}}'' points out the bad logic of assigning "value" to things just because they're pretty and rare. In Utopia, they have the stuff and use it to trade to the outside world, but within Utopia, it's communally owned and growing attached to it is discouraged. Gold is used for the shackles of slaves and for things like chamber pots, so that it's associated with the shameful and dirty. Precious stones are given to small children to wear and play with, with the understanding that any self-respecting Utopian will quickly grow out of this infantile attachment to the shiny if they want to be taken seriously -- so if any foreigners ever arrive all pimped out in their most ostentatious jewelry in an attempt to impress the locals, they'll look like overgrown babies. In one case a foreign king visiting Utopia is mistaken for a slave due to having a gold necklace around his neck. A group of watching Utopians comment on the scene with one saying "that chain hardly looks big enough to prevent that slave from escaping." Since he's also wearing many jewels, which their society veiws as absurd and childish for an adult, they concluded he's some kind of clown. One of the king's servants, who is dressed in normal clothes, is mistaken for the foreign king because he's the only one not wearing gold or jewels, and therefore the only one respectable enough to even be considered the ruler of such a powerful nation.
* The "disaster situation" applies in the novel ''Literature/RobinsonCrusoe'': In chapter five, Robinson is stranded on a desert island with no other human being. He needs every tool he can get, things like razors, scissors, knives, and forks are precious, but then he writes: ''I found about Thirty six Pounds value in Money, some European Coin, some Brazil, some Pieces of Eight, some Gold, some Silver. I smil'd to my self at the Sight of this Money, O Drug Said I aloud, what art thou good for, Thou art not worth to me, no not the taking off of the Ground, one of those Knives is worth all this Heap, I have no Manner of use for thee, e'en remain where thou art, and go to the Bottom as a Creature whose Life is not worth saving. However, upon Second Thoughts, I took it away,'' Robinson knows the value, but those treasures are really only worthless yellow rocks if there is not a society to give them value.

* One of Creator/KeithLaumer's stories had diplomat Literature/{{Retief}} make a deal with an alien who could provide amphibious construction workers. The alien said his people were skilled craftsmen, who had to bring along the materials they knew and loved: gold, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and granite. Retief okayed the gold and jewels, but said to hold the granite, and the alien was pleased at his generosity, "accepting the stuff we got a surplus of, and foregoing the rare and expensive granite."
* ''Literature/The13Clocks'' featured a woman who was cursed to cry jewels - once word spread about her, people came from far and wide to tell her sad stories and make her cry. Unfortunately, over time she [[IncrediblyLamePun flooded]] the economy with jewels and her town collapsed once cobblestones became more valuable than jewelry.
* In the picture book ''The Littlest Angel'', all the angels in Heaven are asked to bring gifts for the birth of Jesus Christ, the best of which will become the Star of Bethlehem. The titular angel, a small boy, brings a box of his earthly possessions from when he was human: a broken dog collar and some shiny pebbles. Because of its sentimental value, the littlest angel's box of trash is chosen over the more elaborate and costly gifts of the other angels.
* Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/SeekersOfTheSky'' duology takes place InAWorld where iron is extremely rare, resulting in a SteamPunk level of technology in the 21st century. Gold is mentioned several times but is usually brushed off as only useful for decorations. Once, the main character notices a [[TheEmpire State]] ship-of-the-line and realizes its wooden hull is gold-plated. He muses that they could've afforded to iron-plate it, but it would just rust. Apparently, steel was never invented in that world, and no one ever mentions aluminium, despite its potential for use in aircraft; a Bayer-equivalent process is also never mentioned.

* In Creator/ArthurCClarke's ''[[Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries 2010: Odyssey Two]]'', space-entity Dave Bowman peers down into the depths of Jupiter and discovers that its core is a diamond the size of the Earth. He is still human enough to appreciate the irony. In ''2061: Odyssey Three'', it turns out that the stellar ignition of Jupiter at the end of the previous book tossed a few "insignificant chunks" of this core up into orbit, including one mountain-sized hunk that landed on one of the Jovian moons.
* A [[Literature/TheBible Biblical]] example:
-->'''[[Literature/BooksOfKings 1 Kings 10:21]]''': All King Solomon’s goblets were gold, and all the household articles in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold. Nothing was made of silver, because silver was considered of little value in Solomon's days.
** This is either a case of silver being Worthless Yellow Rocks (or worthless white rocks, in this case), or a BadassBoast about the level of Solomon's wealth.
* ''Literature/PippiLongstocking'' has piles of gold and zero comprehension of math, so she tends to pay people ''far'' more than the asking price. At one point, she receives change in silver and reacts with disgust: "What would I do with all those nasty little white coins?"
* Inverted in ''Literature/SpiceAndWolf'': Iron pyrite (also known as "fool's gold") suddenly becomes incredibly valuable in one town, mostly due to some economic manipulation among the merchants.

* ''Literature/DocSavage'': In ''Murder Melody'', the BeneathTheEarth kingdom of Subterranea uses gold for a huge variety of uses as it is the most abdundant and ductile metal available.
* In ''[[Literature/HumanxCommonwealth The End Of The Matter]]'', the incomprehensible alien Abalamahalamatandra sits around idly, playing with its toes and setting stones into circles, while the other characters talk. Naturally, nobody notices that it's using very large gemstones to do so, or that it stumbles in a hole where the priceless archeological treasures two of the speakers had been seeking for months are concealed.

* Most of the societies in ''Literature/AliceGirlFromTheFuture'' are moneyless, which leads to this trope. Most notably, ''Literature/TheVoyageOfAlice'' features Alice looking for a replacement for a 1.5 kg gold nugget she took from the school's museum and lost. Since she has plenty of friends, the next day she comes to school with her dad carrying twelve times the required amount.
* Diamonds, rubies, sapphire, and emeralds are all popular building materials in the ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe. Glass has been replaced by diamond panels, and the other precious gems are used essentially like wallpaper.
* Comes up in ''Literature/TalesOfKolmar''. Dragons in that verse transform dirt and rock into gold over long exposure to their bodies, so caves where they sleep gradually acquire golden linings. They don't find it ''entirely'' useless; it's comfortable to sleep on, decorative, they can soften it with their fiery breaths and carve and sculpt it, and most importantly they're able to slather it on as bandages after they're injured, to seal the wounds. They're still baffled by the human desire for it.
* In the ''ComicBook/TransformersTransTech'' short story "Gone Too Far", the heroes ([[LoveableRogue for a certain technical value of "hero"]]) at one point end up on an alien planet where the natives are having a problem with millions of tons of Worthless Pink Rocks: "squareish ones that glow and explode if you hit them too hard or bring fire near them". Realizing they just hit the motherlode of [[PowerSource energon]], our heroes grin at each other and say to the aliens, sure, they'll be nice and take care of these horrible deadly rocks, and they'll even be generous and do it free of charge...
* In Creator/CharlesSheffield's short "The Treasure Of Odirex", a dwindling tribe of Neanderthals lives in hiding in an abandoned Derbyshire gold mine, and make necklaces and other simple ornaments from a shiny yellow mineral they occasionally come across.
* Played straight, ignored ''and'' averted in Hugo Silva's novel ''Pacha Pulai'': a Chilean military pilot (none other than [[spoiler: Lieutenant Alejandro Bello]]) in the early XX century gets lost during a test flight and ends up somewhere in the Andes Mountains. He finds the City of the Caesars, known locally as Pacha Pulai, cut off from communication for at least two centuries and still loyal to Spain. After some adventures [[spoiler: and the destruction of the city]], he returns to civilization, although he never returns to Chile.
** In the city, gold and silver are abundant to the point of being worthless, while copper is rare and expensive. The church bells are made of gold, as are many other things, including regular cutlery (''fine'' cutlery is made of copper).
** As mentioned above, silver is as abundant as gold, but there aren't any references about it being commonly used.
** Early in the story, the pilot confiscates a suitcase with 50.000 Chilean pesos (about 230000 US dollars in today's money) from a thief. This money is stored away and unmentioned during his time in Pacha Pulai. After leaving the city, he loses the suitcase, but chooses not to retrieve it as it was "ill-gotten money" (and he had the key to a treasury, where he'd later recover many riches in the form of gemstones).
* Inverted in the ''Litrature/ThomasCovenant'' books, where gold is priceless, partly because of rarity, and partly because it makes the local magic stronger. White gold, an alloy, is even more valuable, being the key to wild magic.
* Creator/TerryPratchett and Creator/StephenBaxter's ''Literature/TheLongEarth'' takes place in a near future where simple devices allow (nearly) anyone to "step" sideways onto Earth in parallel universes. A minor character decides to step a few worlds over from Sutter's Mill with the intent of finding a jackpot of untouched gold - and finds out that: 1) he's not the only one who had the idea, and 2) it's pointless because there's literally an infinity of Earths out there making every material abundant if you can get to it. However, iron (aside from the iron in blood) can't be carried while stepping, meaning every colony is starting from Bronze Age technology and real value is no longer in resources but expertise - ''every'' colony wants someone who knows how to work metal and eventually let them develop iron production. Many others realize infinite abundance means billions of humans could simply forage for what they need, dissolving the need for high-density agriculture and stable settlements entirely.
* Played with in Elizabeth Enright's ''Tatsinda''. There's a metal -- pretty, but devoid of any practical use -- that's so common in [[{{Arcadia}} Tatrajan]] that the ore is used to pave streets... which happens to be the ''same'' metal coveted by [[OurOgresAreHungrier a greedy]], [[OurGiantsAreBigger brutal ogre]].
* ''Chasing Jenny'' has a thief trying to recover a rare stamp he stole years ago. The story ends with the stamp in the hands of a little girl. She doesn't understand its value and just sticks it on her teddy bear.

* ''Literature/YoungWizards'': In "Wizards at War", Carmela bribes a group of aliens with chocolate bar knowing that off Earth, chocolate is a valuable substance as either an expensive delicacy or a form of currency.
* In the ''Literature/{{Eldraeverse}}'':
** Asteroid mining in the Empire and other core worlds has made gold worth about as much as iron is in the present day, while most mining corporations will give you iron for the cost of transporting it. Though on some undeveloped border worlds and recently contacted planets gold and platinum are still used as currency.
** One story features a museum of early nanotechnology that includes a device which converts [=CO2=] to solid bars of diamond for mitigating global warming, the tour guide offers the bars it makes as free souvenirs.
* In Creator/HarryHarrison's ''Literature/{{Wheelworld}}'', the protagonist mentions that there are warehouses in their off-world colony filled with gold and other precious metals (distilled from seawater) that would make anyone an instant billionaire on Earth. On their colony, however, which is deliberately dependent on Earth for survival, gold isn't any more valuable than for its physical properties. They don't even bother bringing it with them during their annual migration to the other hemisphere.
* In Creator/FrancisCarsac's ''Ceux de nulle part'' (Those from Nowhere), the protagonist finds a crashed alien ship in the woods. The aliens ask for his help in repairing their ship. All they need is a fist-sized chunk of gold, which is only valuable to them as a useful substance. He ends up "borrowing" a fairly large nugget from a guy he knows. He also off-handedly mentions that he has since "returned" the gold, or, rather, a replicated nugget that any star-faring race can easily make.

* Book Two of ''Literature/TheUnderlandChronicles'' has a version of this trope that actually deals with ''paper'' money: the ending of the book has the main character (who is a young pre-teen whose family is in dire financial straits) get a special gift from the inhabitants of the Underland. However, due to a lack of packing paper underground, the medieval-era society instead packs the box with the only apparently useless paper in ample supply: surface-money, taken from the wallets left behind by other surface humans who had died underground.
* Lawrence David Kusche's ''The Bermuda Triangle Mystery - SOLVED'':
-->Several novelists have created civilizations in the center of the [Sargasso] Sea. Here, according to the stories, countless wrecks, many of them hundreds of years old and full of treasure, pile up against each other. The residents of the floating kingdom, who all drifted in helplessly at one time or other, disdain the treasure since it is no use to them.
* Sort of in ''Literature/{{Gnomes}}''. Money, as a whole, is of little value to Gnomes, but they do appreciate gold and silver for its beauty and durability, and tend to use it in crafting, and if it's stolen from them, they will find a way to get it back.

* ''Literature/TheCityAndTheDungeon'': Due to the way crystals work, this is inevitable. Red crystals are roughly equivalent to the currency surfacer countries use, but orange crystals are worth a thousand times more, yellow a thousand times more than that, so on and so on. When Alex first becomes blue he tries to send a blue crystal to his family, and is informed that this one crystal could kill the economy of his entire home country. He sends yellows instead, a million times less than what he wanted, and when he returns home he finds that his family is now the richest in the city by a very large margin.
* ''Men of Honor'' by Will Garth. Earthmen land on an alien planet and find a city of gold. Thinking the aliens will defend this valuable commodity, they sneak in at night and steal all that they can carry. But on returning to their rocketship they find the aliens have cut it up for the steel, which is rare on their world. Being honorable beings however, the aliens leave a huge mountain of gold in compensation next to the now-useless rocket.
* In ''The Crystal Palace'' by Phyllis Eisenstein, a bit of magical travel gone awry sends the wizard Cray Ormoru to a land where gemstones are so common that they're no more valuable than any other pretty rock. On the other hand, silver is so rare that a woman he makes a purchase from hardly knows what to do with the coin he uses to make the purchase, ultimately choosing to make it into a piece of jewelry.
* ''Literature/ForestKingdom'': In book 3 (''Down Among the Dead Men''), normal gold ducats are worthless to Scarecrow Jack, who lives off the bounty of the Forest. Strangely, after having helped recover a large load of gold from the fortress where it was being kept, he doesn't even try to take any to give to people who need it, despite his reputation.
* In ''Literature/ThePrinceAndThePauper'', the Prince is eventually able to prove his identity by revealing the location of the Great Seal of England, which he hid before he left the palace. The only other person who knew where it was—Tom Canty, the IdenticalStranger who took the prince's place—had no idea what it was for and had been using it to [[MundaneUtility crack nuts]].
* Justified in Frank Herbert's ''Literature/{{Dune}}'', when the Freemen, who live on a world without rain, refer to two litres of water as "treasure."
* ''Literature/ReleaseThatWitch'': King Roland decides to use his technology uplift to ''devalue all gemstones''. Since commoners can just ''buy'' synthetic rubies and diamonds, every gemstone in existence is now worth colored glass. This is partly because, in-universe, gemstones culturally represented mindless obedience and caste.
* Inverted in the first ''Literature/{{Deathlands}}'' novel which takes place in an AfterTheEnd ScavengerWorld, where fuel and bullets are regarded as valuable. However Jordan Teague, Baron of Mocsin, made himself wealthy by realising the potential of gold which he could mine locally and ship to the Eastern baronies, which were civilised enough to start getting interested in jewelry and gilding.
* Inverted in ''Literature/{{Gate}}'' where wyvern scales are considered expensive and valuable commodities by the locals but deemed almost worthless by the JSDF. As the result the refugees were able to freely harvest a lot of them from wyvern carcasses remnants of the defeated Imperial army. The Italica arc was kickstarted when Lelei enlists Itami and Third Recon Squad to escort them to the city where they can find the trader who they can sell those scales to.
* ''Literature/TheRoad'' is set AfterTheEnd, in a ScavengerWorld that has almost run out of stuff to scavenge. The man finds some gold coins in a SurvivalistStash, and puts them back. There is nothing left to buy, and no one to buy it from.

* Inverted in ''Literature/{{Gate}}'' where wyvern scales are considered expensive and valuable commodities by the locals but deemed almost worthless by the JSDF. As the result the refugees were able to freely harvest a lot of them from wyvern carcasses remnants of the defeated Imperial army. The Italica arc was kickstarted when Lelei enlists Itami and Third Recon Squad to escort them to the city where they can find the trader who they can sell those scales to.