My World Part 02a: Currency

Having come up with my own calendar (Cyclic Calendar), I decided to focus on currency. Many of my initial thoughts were based on the metric system we use in the real-world–I thought that isn’t my own system; it’s just renaming currency. Where’s the creativity? The originality? Then it came to me. The Cyclic Calendar will be important so why not use that as a basis for currency?

28 days in a month; 13 months in a year; 4 years in a Cycle; and 25 Cycles in a century.

So why not…

28 iron munts in a copper din; 13 copper dins in a silver talon; 4 silver talons in a gold zlot; and 25 gold zlots in a gold baal.

28 (munts) is a high number before the next denomination (din) so I decided to also include a half-din in the final calculations.

The next step is to determine the size and weight of the coins in my world. These can be calculated once we know three things:

1. the real-world weight of iron, copper, silver, and gold per cubic centimetre:
   • Iron: 7.87g per cm3
   • Copper: 8.96g per cm3
   • Silver: 10.49g per cm3
   • Gold: 19.32g per cm3
2. the weight (in grams) of an iron munt
3. the gram for gram value each of the metals will have in my world

Having researched the weight of British coins (between 3.25 – 12g), I determined iron munts would weigh 6 grams. For gram for gram value I decided on the following ratios (I could have used the ratio 28:1, 13:1 and 4:1, which I will explore another day. This would allow all coins to be the same weight–10 grams to prevent the half-din and zlot being too small–but would mean the value of silver to gold is only 4:1, which seems low historically and in fantasy–unless I can think of a good reason for silver to be so valuable):

Now I had: (1) the denominations 28, 13, 4, 1, and 25; (2) the real-world weight per cm3 of each metal; (3) weight in grams on an iron munt; and (4) fantasy world values for the metals (i.e. 14 grams of iron is worth 1 gram of copper). With these four things I am able to calculate the weight of each coin, in my world:

And, finally, knowing the weight of each coin, in grams, I am able to calculate the size each coin should be in cm3:

After a little bit of further thought I decided I wanted the shape of my coins to also be derived from the calendar so decided on the following:

• Munt: 28 sides-26 sides and 2 faces, which would be almost a circle
• Half-din: 7 sides–5 sides plus 2 faces (7 doesn’t fit the calendar, however, it is half of 13 rounded up
• Din: 13 sides–11 sides plus 2 faces
• Talon: 4 sides–pyramid
• Zlot: 25 sides–23 sides plus 2 faces, which would almost be a circle
• Baal: 1 sides–sphere

This wonderful website allowed me to calculate the size of most of the coin shapes.

Here is a useful link for metal densities.