Cost and value

I fear it is more from pity than need that I have been given this task. For, though I am a gnome of pure blood, and the son of powerful necromancers, yet to my everlasting dismay, I have not a whit or shred of the Gift. I can no more feel the spirit Wyrld than can the quill I write with. And so, it has come to pass that my brothers and cousins, sensitive to my plight, and, perhaps, deploring the presence of idle hands and minds, have given me this task. For I shall never be a great necromancer. Indeed, I shall never be even a poor necromancer. Yet, in their pity, my clansmen have found a task that I find not disagreeable. They wish a better understanding of how the exchange of coins is based upon the value of the goods received and the skill required to produce them. To that end I set this essay to parchment.

I am not well traveled, or perhaps by your standards, dear reader, I am. I have been so far as Tisbah and looked upon the great desert. I have been North to Vaelsh, and have even taken ship to Riamahn. To the South, I have visited Coer-Maen and Falcos. Yet, I know there is much of the Wyrld that I do not know. So this essay must, perforce, restrict itself to what I have seen, and therefore, its scope must be of limited geography.

In the first part, one must understand the value of a Shurran. In composition it is 1/12'th of a pound of silver, exquisitely wrought, alloyed with a few percent copper, and in such a form that any loss of silver would be immediately recognized. I have calculated the following. The convicted criminals who work the silver mines, on average, per man, produce two pounds of silver per year. That is, twenty-four Shurrans worth of silver. Yet, they are only credited with one Tenth of a Shurran per week towards the elimination of their debt, or a little over five Shurrans per year. Is this inequitable? No, it is not. For the value of a Shurran lies in its silver, but equally it lies in the guarantee that it is a true Niellorian ounce of silver, regardless of how many hands it has passed through. Consider the Mallus: easily shaved, and universally discounted against the Shurran. Yet, the Mallus I have weighed have been, for the most part, within ¾'ths of the weight of a Shurran. Yet, the discount is usually 50%. A clever group, armed with this knowledge and having a sufficiently powerful press, with accurate stamping faces of the Shurran, could thus easily convert many Mallus into Shurrans, gaining roughly five Shurrans per fifteen produced. Or, if you prefer, mining the silver is a part of its value, but engravers, whitesmiths, and bureaucrats all have contributed to the final value of the coin. In spite of this, truth be told, the average citizen of these lands (and even yours truly before beginning this project) believes the value of a coin is vested solely in its metal content. So be it.

In light of this apparent discrepancy between the value of the Shurran and the Mallus, it would be not surprising in the least to discover that the government of Shurrah was actively engaged in trade for Mallus, simply to melt and re-cast them as Shurrans. Ironically, if this is occurring, the value of the Mallus may be propped up. The profit to the government of Shurrah, as discussed above, would be significant.

Having established the value of a Shurran, one must then ask, what it can purchase. In the agrarian sector, if a farmer were to toil for the year upon forty acres of land, supporting naught but a draft animal, and providing, as much as possible, for his own needs, if the harvest is of wheat, and abundant, the farmer will make between eight and twelve Shurran. If the harvest is average, five to seven Shurran will be his lot. And, if the harvest is poor, he may make no more than a single Shurran, and may well lose money. Should the farmer instead produce apples, dates, almonds, or other luxury crop, then his lot may be twice that of the wheat farmer, but he will spend years impoverished before his trees begin producing. Perhaps because of the limited geography where the grapes can be successfully grown, and the high luxury of the product, wine producers, if they grow their own grapes, in an average year, may realize a fifty to seventy Shurran profit. The production of beer and ale lies somewhere closer to a luxury crop, unless the brewer both grow his own barley and hops, and also sell his product on the retail market. Thus a tavern owner, such as the inestimable Benison of The Red Tail Inn in Vaelsh, supplying a limited local customer base and a much larger transient population, can, from as it happens, approximately forty acres of mixed Barley and Hops, realize a profit of over forty Shurran a year, simply from his trade in ale. At that, he is charging the customer no more than two penions a glass. As is the custom in Vaelsh, Benison trades for his meat, eggs, fish, and other consumables using his ale as barter goods. Thus, there are additional profits resulting from his trade in ale that are not accounted for in hard currency. However, there are probably additional expenses associated with this particular Inn as it is almost certain, given the size of his brewery, that Benison trades for additional barley and hops.

In an urban environment, again, needed and luxury goods command a greater price. In Tisbah, a well-digger may earn two to four tenths a week, if he is industrious and knows where to dig. Yet, that same well-digger, in or near Menion, will make no more than a tenth a week. So even for manual labor, there exists a variable market. Note also that the minimum, a tenth a week, is about the same for any unskilled labor in a saturated market.

At the same time, a blacksmith, capable of shoeing horses and producing average quality wrought-iron goods, makes about a Shurran a week. This is deduced from his prices and costs. A blacksmith can turn ten feet of barstock into roughly sixteen horseshoes and nails to attach them. The process takes roughly four days. He charges a Shurran per horse. The barstock, and fuel for the forge to shoe one horse, will cost him eight tenths. Thus, over the course of four days, if four horses are shod, the blacksmith must spend thirty two tenths but will receive forty. And so, deducting a small amount for food, shelter, and clothing, and taking into account that a week offers the opportunity to make the shoes and shoe seven horses, one finds that a moderately industrious and reasonably frugal blacksmith will net about a Shurran a week. Should he charge more, competitors who live more frugally will take away his business. Should he charge less, his standard of living will begin to decline. Should a stranger call upon the smith to shoe a horse, the smith will charge more. But this is offset by the smith's willingness to aid a neighbor or friend who may not be able to pay the full Shurran. The smith just described is the craftsman equivalent of a well-digger. Should the smith have the skill to make steel from the barstock, the smith can produce plows, knives, scissors, and other useful items. His costs, fuel and barstock, remain the same. The time it takes him to finish and properly temper a knife blade is the better part of two days. Yet, the completed knife will sell for two to five Shurrans, depending on the quality of the work and the nature of the steel. Weapons and armor crafting will command even higher prices. A longsword, although taking only about twice as long to make as a knife, will command a price of five to twenty Shurrans, and costs will reach, at most, five Shurran. Thus, given a day for rest, a weaponsmith can clear up to thirty Shurran a week. That is, assuming there is a market for such work. In actual fact, most blacksmiths spend most of their time on the mundane matters of the Wyrld: shoeing horses, making table knives, nails, pins, and needles. It is rare, except in some of the largest and most military cities, for a blacksmith to get a commission to produce more than two to three swords a year.

Similar considerations apply to carpenters, builders, and the assorted craftsmen whose livelihood depends on the common person's needs. Their customer base is large, and they will never lack for work. But their customers, for the most part, being of the same social strata as themselves, enjoy only limited resources. Thus, they will never, in their estimation, be rich. Note that the term rich is entirely subjective! A day laborer would consider himself rich with ten Shurrans. A skilled blacksmith would consider himself rich with a thousand. Apparently, as one rises in the social strata, one's expectations rise as well.

Miners, loggers, hunters, and trappers, perhaps surprisingly, fall more towards the farmer's income than the craftsman. A miner can easily mine a ton of ore a day. Yet the miner must do more than mine. He must then spend three days to a week transporting his ore to a smelter. Usually, this is accomplished by a string of mules, each carrying about two hundred pounds. Once there, his ore is sold on the basis of its metal content (assay). A ton of high-grade iron ore will fetch no more than two Shurrans. Then the miner must return to his mine, dig deeper, haul and pack the ore. One entire iteration of this effort can take one to two weeks, and frankly, most iron ore is not very rich. Thus, in reality, it is more common for a miner to work his mine for a gross payment of about half a Shurran a week. From that he must deduct his expenses, including replacing the occasional mule. It is possible for the miner to increase his profits by hiring help to run the mules. In this way, a successful miner may gross one to two Shurrans a week, but given his expenses, he may only net five tenths a week.

The above consideration does not account for the occasional prospector who happens upon a vein of gold or silver, or placer deposits of sapphires, rubies, and other assorted precious stones. Such an example, perhaps, as Jerome Constantine set in Vaelsh when he discovered the silver vein, somewhere in the Trollmount area. Within a year, he had managed to refine two hundred pounds of silver, and using that as starting capital, founded the Constantine silver cartel, now being run by his son, Bartholomew.

Jewelers, artists, and other highly skilled craftsmen can earn many times what a blacksmith or carpenter can earn. Yet their expenses are also much higher. In the case of a jeweler, expenses include guards and raw materials. In the case of an artist, well, unfortunately, people's tastes change so quickly that one week an artist could be executing a fifty Shurran commission, and the next, selling his work on the street for Beshits.

Innkeepers, stable owners, and others whose living comes from providing service have high initial expenses, yet, as their skill develops, they can easily net two to five Shurrans a week. Their secret comes from volume. To make a penion profit on a mug of ale is no great thing, unless one sells a hundred mugs a day. Thus, typical prices for a mug of ale are two to four penions. Wine, which costs more, commands a higher price: two to four penions a glass, bearing in mind that a glass contain about a third of what a mug will contain. A bottle of wine, purchased at an inn, will cost somewhere between one and four tenths, as innkeepers are reluctant to stock more expensive vintages. Of course, in an inn that caters to the wealthy, prices can be increased by a factor of ten, or even a hundred! It boggles the mind to conceive of a bottle of wine selling for fifty Shurrans, yet such transactions happen every day.

With the above basis for costs well in hand, it is easy to understand the pricing for other common items. I append here a list of those prices for common and exotic items I have recorded in my travels:

"This concludes my examination of the basis of prices and currency in the above-defined geographic portion of the Wyrld. While it is certainly possible to produce a much greater work detailing prices and their fluctuations for all goods across the land, one must question whether there is benefit to balance the additional work required. War, famine, and pestilence will all alter prices, and thus the work may well be obsolete before it is published. Never the less, from this humble beginning, I dare hope, other scholars will build, as additional insights into the nature of currency, value, and trade are gleaned.

Your Servant,
Ignatz Longpipe

Signed this twenty first day of the eleventh month of the year 590 of the Age of Balance.

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