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| silver |
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| lead/galena |
The primary ore of silver (at least in ancient times and for my purposes) is galena. Galena is also a lead ore, and produces about 1-2% of silver. To my geologically untrained eye, its occurrence is more or less random, except for a relationship with chalcopyrite.
Because I'm itching to start playing, I may skip over silver (and gold) production in the trade system. I'll still work on them, of course, but I might use "silver" directly (as a raw resource) rather than bother to work out the details of production.
That brings to mind an interesting question about coinage. This would be restricted to an administrative center or licensed foundry, and while raw nuggets of metal could certainly be used in frontier towns, a gold mine does not necessarily equate to a flourishing coinage economy. The bullion has to make its way down to the foundry (if its located elsewhere) to be converted to spendable coinage appropriate to the realm. So that might be interesting to study later on, if I include foreign currencies rather than a flat "gp/sp/cp" across the globe. Unrealistic, I know, but gameable. I'm not a monster.
Historically many towns had mints for silver coinage. Whilst most kept fairly well to the general trade coinage, some coins were almost pewter in quality (which were traded by the town council at face value - usually aided by regulations that all trade inside the town be performed in the local coins). This didn't really affect the local economy all that severely (they used the local coins) or merchants (who would trade the coins for the appropriate value at a nearby merchant's fair), but could be an unpleasant surprise for travellers.
ReplyDeleteThe minting of gold coins, which tended to be used for international trade, was generally an Imperial or Royal monopoly. Gold mints were heavily restricted
Note that the authority of the region generally guaranteed the coinage. For example one of the duties of master of the Royal Mint was to chase after counterfeiters.
Most coinage is an alloy, usually for hardness/wear but also because producing pure metal was difficult. A guinea for example was only 90% gold.
Later on, for example, you got situations were the face value of the currency actually really related to the value of the next metal up effectively. For example a copper penny was theoretically worth a pennyweight of silver. And a silver dollar was effective equal to half a troy pound in value of actual silver under the old scheme where the bullion worth was considered.
Great info, thanks! I would love to incorporate these types of things into my game at some point, but I have to balance my own workload. But that's good to know particularly about silver vs gold mints.
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