Change the name of the 'coin press'

[wulf]

Maybe "die press" would be a better title - certainly applicable to coinage but also usable for other tasks, such as making badges, etc.

Wulf

[swymir]

It's not 'all over the place'

Quillinoi
Seatown
Sring-Sri Island
Lad Empire

...have all had some experience with a form of currency that is not hard. And many of the places that shot down the use of the Quii was primarily due to the fact aht there was nothing backing it up. So I disagree with the fact that they have no right to join in now. The Quii was a fictional unit. If it were made into hard currency then everything changes. I don't feel that this is IN ANY WAY a CR breech. It would be like saying "I want a longboat, but perhaps I should randomly guess which tool it takes to build it." If it makes you feel better pretend that God (Jos) has given all characters the devine knowledge of knowing a monetary system and in a way he did.

[formerly known as hf]

I would hardly call that all over the place Swymir...

Like I said - Quillinoi and nearby places, and others that have already thought about currency - I have no problem with them thinking about a coin press as a way of creating a hard currency...

Maybe our characters are in very different places? Mine have never heard of currency except when one of them spent some time in seatown, and they weren't very impressed by it - he saw no one actually use it at anytime...

As for that longboat example - you don't seem to get what I mean. I'm not saying that characters shouldn't have some basic idea of how to do things - but currency is far from basic - it only truly started to flourish in history when huge empires, such as the greek empire, were really able to back it up...

If your character had never heard of currency, and no one around them had, and all of a sudden some people start talking about currency... and they have no explanation of where they heard about it, how they came up with it, why they happen to know that the coin press can do that... that just seems... weird...

I just wish people would realise that in a town that has a fairly shaky economy, and a very weak governance, currency is a concept that is far too developed for it to be really considered - but people are starting to seriously consider it - and I can't see any IC reasons that currency would be valued in those small, undeveloped places. Which is why I say the desire for currency []iin small, undeveloped places[/i] is an OOC feeling, rooted in what is the norm for the real world, not in what is reality for the characters...

People should 'think out side the box' - not use real life assumptions...

They should make items of jewellery that require coins - give them some other, physical, purpose - if peopel can't use their imagination when it comes to thinking about a coin press - do it for them *sighs*

[Nixit]

It still makes "coins" whether it is used for currency or not.

Farmer> Have you actually seen someone randomly say they should make currency or are you just making sure that it never happens?

If the name should be changed, what should it be? It would have to be a reasonly short name (not "metal disk press") yet give people and sense of what they're making.

[swymir]

I understand what you are saying but the point I was making is that currecny is not as rare as you make it believe and the only reason it isn't very popular in most palces is that few are quick to accept a system in which you are dealing with imagninary amounts as opposed to something you can touch. Even in real life paper money is something that you can touch. The Quii in Quillinoi is purely fictional it exsists no where except on paper, but works because many people there give it value and that is the point of a monetary system. Nothing works if the people don't accept the value of something.

Again I understand what you are saying that people should not initiate a monetary system for the sake of having one, but I do not see many places at all really trying anything big to get it going.

[formerly known as hf]

changing the name was just a (fairly silly) suggestion - I was mainly having a rant...

I have seen people, in undeveveloped areas, suddenly, and quite randomly want to make currency - and more than once - which just annoyed me...

All I ask is that people think twice before leaping to the suggestion of using the coin press to make currency - it just seems somewhat indicative of a lack of imagination.

But then again, the plans to build the coin presses seemed to have fallen through recently - not that I'm surprised...

[Nixit]

Alright, I haven't seen anyone, but then again I only have five chars... so I'll stop talking.

[Lumin]

All I know is if that if somebody wants to walk up to my characters and try to trade some worthless bits of metal for good resources, I'll have them run out of town as a scammer. (Well, not that my chars have that kind of power yet, but they'll at least look at the person like they're crazy.) But if you want to trade iron or something, you know, something useful, then we'll talk.

The idea of currency would be pretty ridiculous in a lot of places. In a simple barter society, ("You have food and need wood, but I have wood and need food, so let's trade.") coins would only needlessly complicate things. ("Well, give me some coins for this wood, and then I'll work out how much food I could get for the coins you just gave me and buy some food from you...oh, wait, you don't want the coins back? But I still need food.")

Then again, in a more advanced society, all of the basic resources (food, wood, bone, hide) would be readily available or even obsolete, and a lot of the selling would be to people that need tools or "industrial" supplies like limestone, hematite, etc. in bulk. Once a rate of exchange was established, currency would make buying the stuff a lot easier than trying to trade with different people who want different things, some of which you don't have.

[mortaine]

"Coin press" is more translatable than "die press." Punch in "die press" into a translation engine, if you don't know it very well, and you will come up with a translation that probably means a very gruesome machine for killing things.

The other arguments, that monetary systems might be a little premature for Cantr, I will not and cannot argue against. I'd rather barter for food, protection, and healing, than for useless disks of metal that will do absolutely nothing for me, and probably cost me dear just to create.

[Surly]

Then again, in a more advanced society, all of the basic resources (food, wood, bone, hide) would be readily available or even obsolete, and a lot of the selling would be to people that need tools or "industrial" supplies like limestone, hematite, etc. in bulk. Once a rate of exchange was established, currency would make buying the stuff a lot easier than trying to trade with different people who want different things, some of which you don't have.

That really is the main point. It doesn't really matter if people talk about it... if the society is not ready for currency it will fail. I can think of perhaps 3 locations in Cantr where it would work, but mostly currency would be premature.
People should realise (and many do) that most Cantr socities cannot yet support a currency system, even if a press is built. Like most technological 'advances', Cantr will adapt to it.

Just one question: is it going to be possible in future to create new dies for a press? (i.e. new names) Or would just have to build multiple presses?