Coin press

[Sho]

Until recently (as Meh said), that piece of cellulose sheet could be exchanged for a certain amount of gold.

All things can have intrinsic value or market value. Intrinsic value is determined by the actual utility of the item. Market value is what you can get from another person in return for the item. Most of the time, things have intrinsic value equal to market value. However, sometimes market value exceeds intrinsic value. When this happens, you have money.

Money can be of three types: intrinsically valuable, backed or unbacked. Intrinsically valuable money, like gold coins, has high intrinsic value. The market value may be higher because it is endorsed as pure by a government or other group. It could also be valuable because it is easy to transport or is simply a popular medium of exchange (like salt). Backed money can be exchanged for something through a government or other group, but has no intrinsic value. Its market value is tied to whatever it can be exchanged with. Unbacked money's market value relies solely on the people's faith in the issuer. If the issuer is having financial difficulties or is somehow viewd as untrustworthy, the money's value can fall very rapidly.

All money in Cantr is (so far) of low value because it is not very verifiable. I've never seen money in Cantr, but as there is no foolproof way of stamping an object, counterfeiting is easy. Hence no one is willing to back money (counterfeiters could exchange money for iron and run) and unbacked money is not trusted. Intrinsically valuable money is not possible because if an item is labeled "iron," then it is iron. An item is therefore guaranteed to be what it looks like and a government guarantee is neither possible nor needed.

The main thing that is needed is therefore a secure (or at least time-consuming to counterfeit) method of identifying objects. Perhaps it could be something like keys, except requiring more equipment. A coin could be made only if you had a coin die, a coin press and probably something to make the coin out of, like iron. The coinmaking process could be relatively quick. A coin could also be melted down (in a furnace or something) to yield the original metal. This would be necessary if you wanted coins to have any intrinsic value.

[David]

Steel grams are a commodity but can act as a very reliable currency that holds its value.

[Bowser]

Perhaps it could be something like keys

Brilliant idea. If you want a unique, uncounterfeitable piece of money, just pick a key and keep copying it over and over. Only the key with that unique # will pass for a coin.

People could keep copying that coin over and over to make more money, but it would cost that person 10 grams of valuable iron and a days work. If the value of the keycoin is worth one days work then making your own money would not be as profitable as chopping down a days worth of wood.

Maybe there are some bugs to work out in how to really apply this, but a key # is easily verifiable

[Spectrus_Wolfus]

maybe the coin press could put a unchangable number on the coin similiar to a lock and a town could make the coin press and then sell the coins to other town's near them so that an area has a standardised coinage.maybe coin mint's could spring up near copper or tin resource center's and give us more uses for them?

[Sho]

Sounds good to me. There are some things that would make it even better (ability to melt down coins, some way to counterfeit coins), but even this should be enough to provide a secure and valuable currency.

[viktor]

currency is just a non perishable medium of trade.
people would open shops to sell goods, they get coins that they can use to pay people to help them build things, or to purchase other things from someone else.
of course in the real world 2 main reasons gold and silver became currency were that they looked nice (and were somewhat rare), and also there were better materials to make tools and weapons with so gold and silver were mostly just used for appearances, jewelry decoration on buildings and eventually coinage (though in older times they made coins from bronze copper and steel and we use a few materials today in coinage)
another one of those things that just needs some deep lengthy thought to figure how to get it to work but that's what societies in the game is for. if we start off by using gold for currency by weight (this costs 50g this costs 5000g) then it becomes a true currency and a coin press would then allow people to create specific units of gold

[Bowser]

A coin could be a sealed envelope by a banker, the envelope name could include the amount it is worth, if it is sealed, it is worth what it says, if it is ever unsealed, it is then worthless.

One question, could someone change their name to the bankers name, seal a note and then counterfeit money?

[Meh]

I am still of the opnion that cloth can be used as currency. It has a non- dangerous use and takes time to make. The effort to make it is known by those who produce it. It's value would vary by availability. It is not conterfeitable. Some types of cloth are more vaulable than others so that would not work everywhere.

Then there is always iron and steel.

[Sho]

The problem is that the amount of currency in circulation would be extremely variable if a raw material was used as currency. You'd have people using money on their projects and people making money. The "currency" would have a different value for everyone. A tailor would consider cloth more valuable than most people would consider it to be worth, and an important requirement for something to be considered money is that it must have a more or less equal perceived value for everyone in the society. Basically there would be no distinction between money and a regular raw material, so there would be no point to there being money.

[Gunther_01]

I like the 'key' style.
Heres gunthers idea on the processes involved.
First, I'd rather make the coins out of gold, because gold has no value in the game at the moment.
You would have to build a 'Coin Press' as was noted above. The press would be relatively hard to make, ie:It takes alot of steel, a screwdriver and a wrench. The Press has a unique number assigned to it like the locks: "#1122353, One Dollar (Karnon)"
When you begin construction of the press you could be asked "What is the name of the currency", were you could call them dollars, dracmars or Karnoniums, and assign a value to the coin (if nessesary. Most of the places my characters are in trade with units ie:How much you can harvest in a day, or how much total food was consumed to construct this tool.)
After a few days of construction, you have your coin press, and your ready to press coins. You use the Press in much the same way as a peice of machinerey. You will start the process 'pressing coins': "Please note that in a day you can only press 20 coin."
It will require some gold (about 100, or 50g). At the end of the day you've got 20 gold peices to send into the market.

[RyceLandeer]

Yes but with nothing behind the gold coins they are still worthless unless people make them valuable which isnt going to happen, why would someone trade 100g of steel for 20 gold coins when in the next town over no one will accept the gold coins.
Plus when you first start making your currency, say you have 100g coins total and thats all there is of this specific coin in all of Cantr. Each coin would be worth a lot more than if there were 10,000 coins, how can you regulate a currency when each day there are more coins being added?

In the US money is not valuable simply because its money they have gold in the treasuries and that anybody can trade their Dollars$ for, giving them something of value. If all the gold in the treasuries were depleted the american dollar would have no value. Thats why different dollars, pesos, etc around the world are worth different values.

Heres what I propose:

First you need a Bank...or city treasury.
Then you need several members of the community to run it, these people would have to have high integrity and trusted by many as these people could mess everything up and screw a lot of people over. They also have to be very smart and good at math cause this will be tricky.

Then you need something of value behind the money as Sho was saying...I propose steel

The bank has to have this locked up somewhere real tight and would definately have to be well defended because bank robbers will probably be a new profession chosen by many.

Then you need a note, coin, something that is uncopyable. (I think there should be no natural way to copy it. I know you all want to make counterfit money but thats just it everyone does and there would be too much counterfit money running around everywhere and banks would lose too much many and eventually go bankrupt ruining the whole idea)

Then you need an exchange rate, say 10g steel per note (coin, whatever)

Then for every note you give to the public make sure you put 10g of iron into the treasury.

That way the money has actual value and anyone can take there money to the bank to get it exchanged for actual steel.

If I were the bank I would charge say 11 or 12g of steel per note. Because like any profession your in it to make money. People will still buy notes from you because they are used for convieneince they dont take up all the space so you can carry other stuff. Thats the whole reason a money system was created in the first place was convienience and trade.

As for the notes, coins, whatever...I think there should be some sort of press that makes an uncopyable note/coin the press should be very difficult to make but the notes/coins themselves should be easy.

The system would have to start off locally and it would pretty much only work in the town.

Say a bank opened in Seatown Forest. A traveller purchases some 10 notes (worth 100 steel) to anyone in Seatown forest he has 100 steel but if he moved on to Drojf the notes would hold less value as anyone in Drojf would have to travel back to seatown forest to get the steel in exchange if thats what they wanted. Which is a possibility still and some would do it but probably at a smaller exchange rate due to the time needed for travel. And further on down the road in Krif it would hold less value as few would make the trip. And further on...less and less until finally people would be like what money? I dont beleive you.

But imagin the possibilities...

The banks could make branches in other cities making the money just as valuable in the city with the new branch..

Imagine a global banking system eventually...the founders would be rich...


SORRY! I know its really long and probably confusing at some parts but I really think this idea could work tell me what you guys think

[Gunther_01]

The press should still have it's independant serial number, that way you cannot copy the coins without going through a helluva lot of trouble.
Maybe you could have a project "Copy Coin Press" just like the copy key preject except that it's more expensive. That way someone could sneakely start a counterfitting operation. Yay lol.

[RyceLandeer]

But you know everyone is going to want to counterfit and it will overflow the market and run the banks out of business making the money system useless

[Appleide]

to rycelandeer.
Great idea!
You know, what? I am going to try to build a bank in krif. But its gonna take 10 years though. Be patient. I am just a newbie. But i WILL build a bank in Krif!

Seriously: I kinda liked the idea of making a note that has my name on it and cannot be changed, if you have a note that is by say me then i give you 10g stuff, and you could buy a not from me.

Historically, banks evolved from goldsmiths, they have gold in their store and claimed when you give them your note. You could use the note to buy stuff...

[RyceLandeer]

I would help you but there is 2 problems, 1 there is no way to make a note uncopyable (for the time being) and 2 My character just left Krif but good luck to you, if I think of a way to make a note that cant be counterfitted I'll let you know