Whats the money worth

[Aebram]

1 minute ago, Alden Rothack said:

12 minutes ago, Aebram said:

Is it?

This subject has been discussed before. The books contain very few specific examples of prices; and I don't think there's any mention of a gold-to-silver exchange rate. Did I miss something? What is the ratio?

the coins suggest so by their relation to each other so absent other information we may take the fact as given

How much larger is a dragon than a stag (or vice versa, if you think the stag is larger)? Where is this described in the text?

[Alden Rothack]

Just now, Aebram said:

How much larger is a dragon than a stag (or vice versa, if you think the stag is larger)? Where is this described in the text?

given that a dragon is worth over two hundred stags its very unlikely to be smaller than the stag

[Craving Peaches]

12 minutes ago, Alden Rothack said:

thats not a problem with the currency, the prizes being a hundred times too high is entirely consistent with Robert massively overspending

The value of the money is still dubious because Anguy manages to blow 10,000 Gold Dragons on the Westerosi equivalent of 'hookers and cocaine' really quickly, even taking into account it is expensive, would they really be so expensive as to allow him to waste all of it in a relatively short period of time? Other nobles go there and they don't seem to think it is as extortionate as that. It suggests dragons were worth less than they were later on, since we are later told that a mere three hundred gold dragons is an generous ransom for a knight, a thousand dragons is offered for Jaime's recapture, and Anguy had over thirty/ten times that amount. Salla is being paid thrice of what Anguy spent a month to put his whole fleet of fully crewed ships in action for Stannis.

Even if you accept Robert was being lavish with the prizes I still don't think it makes much sense. I like this article: By Popular Demand: “Who Stole Westeros?” | Race for the Iron Throne (wordpress.com), which suggests that the state of finances could not be caused solely by Robert overspending but rather LF had to be up to something.

Edited February 16 by Craving Peaches

[Alden Rothack]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

The value of the money is still dubious because Anguy manages to blow 10,000 Gold Dragons on the Westerosi equivalent of 'hookers and cocaine' really quickly, even taking into account it is expensive, would they really be so expensive as to allow him to waste all of it in a relatively short period of time? It suggests dragons were worth less than they were later on, since we are later told that a mere three hundred gold dragons is an generous ransom for a knight, a thousand dragons is offered for Jaime's recapture, and Anguy had over thirty/ten times that amount. Salla is being paid thrice of what Anguy spent a month to put his whole fleet of fully crewed ships in action for Stannis.

Even if you accept Robert was being lavish with the prizes I still don't think it makes much sense.

Yes, it is very much possible for Anguy to blow that much in that amount of time

Robert was not being merely lavish, he was being extremely over lavish even by the standards of even very very rich people like the Lannisters.

[Craving Peaches]

2 minutes ago, Alden Rothack said:

Yes, it is very much possible for Anguy to blow that much in that amount of time

How so?

He went through all of it in a couple of weeks at the latest. We know that they newly-knighted Bronn can afford to go there regularly, so they cannot be that expensive relatively speaking. Note also that a generous ransom for a knight, i.e. Bronn, is three hundred dragons. I don't think it adds up. Ten thousand dragons is the reward Corlys offers for the whereabouts of the man who slew his son and heir, and this was around the time the Velaryons were one of or the richest house in Westeros. 

[Alden Rothack]

3 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

How so?

He went through all of it in a couple of weeks at the latest. We know that they newly-knighted Bronn can afford to go there regularly, so they cannot be that expensive relatively speaking. Note also that a generous ransom for a knight, i.e. Bronn, is three hundred dragons. I don't think it adds up. Ten thousand dragons is the reward Corlys offers for the whereabouts of the man who slew his son and heir, and this was around the time the Velaryons were one of or the richest house in Westeros. 

Corly is rich but not an idiot, he knows that more than that isn't needed

Bronn works for Tyrion, its very possible that Bronn is spending a lot of gold but not overspending lavishly like a fool, if you want to spend a hundred or even a thousand times what something is actually worth they will let you if you can prove you have the money. there were for example hookers who charged thousands a night even in the middle ages.

 

[Aebram]

6 minutes ago, Alden Rothack said:

given that a dragon is worth over two hundred stags its very unlikely to be smaller than the stag

I answered my own question by checking the wiki article on "Currency."

Quote

The one time that any of these exchange rates was ever somewhat confirmed in the books was in The Hedge Knight, when Duncan the Tall sold a horse for the price of 750 silver stags - but was physically paid in the form of 3 gold dragons, the rest in silvers (3 x 210 = 630, but 4 x 210 = 840).

The phrase "these exchange rates" refers to an IAF role-playing game, described in the same article, which mentions that the game "did not receive any input from Martin." In the game, one dragon is worth 210 stags.

This, unfortunately, is still not authoritative, because we don't know how many silvers were in "the rest." From our modern perspective, it's natural to conclude that the three dragons represented most of the payment, and the remaining silvers must have been worth something less than one dragon. But in a medieval world, coins were harder to store, transport, and exchange. Maybe the merchant happened to have a large quantity of stags, and he actually paid most of the value with them, just to get rid of them before returning home at the end of the tourney.

But if we assume that the merchant had an ample supply of both dragons and stags, and he didn't use excess stags just to unload them, then Yes, this example does indeed indicate that one dragon is worth something less than 250 stags. It also indicates a lower limit of about 187.5 stags (1/4 of 750), because if it was less than that, the merchant would have paid Dunk with four dragons instead of three.

But of course, we don't know the difference in weight between dragons and stags. So even if we know the dragon-to-stag exchange rate, that doesn't tell us the relative value per ounce of the raw metals. But we can speculate.

Gold is about twice as dense as silver. So if the dragon is ten times the weight of the stag, a coin-to-coin ratio of 200 suggests that gold is worth 20 times as much as an equal weight of silver. That's similar to the real-world exchange rate throughout most of human history (although in recent years it's been much higher.)

Is it reasonable to imagine that dragons weigh ten times as much as stags?  Yes, thanks to tne higher density, and the magic of 3-dimensional geometry. If the dragon's diameter and thickness are 2.15 times the stag's, then the dragon will weigh about ten times as much as the stag.  So this all seems plausible.

So Ser Duncan's sale isn't authoritative, but it's a data point. Thanks for mentioning it.

Now I want to go reread that story, and see if there are any clues about the actual size or weight of the money, such as how large a bag it filled, how difficult it was to carry, etc. ... unless someone here remembers that?

[Aebram]

1 hour ago, Alden Rothack said:

Yes, it is very much possible for Anguy to blow that much in that amount of time

 

 Those tournament prizes have been discussed here before. The George has acknowledged that he's not very good with numbers such as prices, geography, sizes of armies, etc. I have suggested that we consider those numbers to the outliers, chosen arbitrarily for dramatic effect, at a time when the story was still young. If we want to have a good sense of Westerosi economics, we may need to simply discard a few numbers that don't make sense, or that are far out of line with the big picture.

[Alden Rothack]

2 hours ago, Aebram said:

I answered my own question by checking the wiki article on "Currency."

The phrase "these exchange rates" refers to an IAF role-playing game, described in the same article, which mentions that the game "did not receive any input from Martin." In the game, one dragon is worth 210 stags.

This, unfortunately, is still not authoritative, because we don't know how many silvers were in "the rest." From our modern perspective, it's natural to conclude that the three dragons represented most of the payment, and the remaining silvers must have been worth something less than one dragon. But in a medieval world, coins were harder to store, transport, and exchange. Maybe the merchant happened to have a large quantity of stags, and he actually paid most of the value with them, just to get rid of them before returning home at the end of the tourney.

But if we assume that the merchant had an ample supply of both dragons and stags, and he didn't use excess stags just to unload them, then Yes, this example does indeed indicate that one dragon is worth something less than 250 stags. It also indicates a lower limit of about 187.5 stags (1/4 of 750), because if it was less than that, the merchant would have paid Dunk with four dragons instead of three.

But of course, we don't know the difference in weight between dragons and stags. So even if we know the dragon-to-stag exchange rate, that doesn't tell us the relative value per ounce of the raw metals. But we can speculate.

Gold is about twice as dense as silver. So if the dragon is ten times the weight of the stag, a coin-to-coin ratio of 200 suggests that gold is worth 20 times as much as an equal weight of silver. That's similar to the real-world exchange rate throughout most of human history (although in recent years it's been much higher.)

Is it reasonable to imagine that dragons weigh ten times as much as stags?  Yes, thanks to tne higher density, and the magic of 3-dimensional geometry. If the dragon's diameter and thickness are 2.15 times the stag's, then the dragon will weigh about ten times as much as the stag.  So this all seems plausible.

So Ser Duncan's sale isn't authoritative, but it's a data point. Thanks for mentioning it.

Now I want to go reread that story, and see if there are any clues about the actual size or weight of the money, such as how large a bag it filled, how difficult it was to carry, etc. ... unless someone here remembers that?

not as far as I know

 

2 hours ago, Aebram said:

 

 Those tournament prizes have been discussed here before. The George has acknowledged that he's not very good with numbers such as prices, geography, sizes of armies, etc. I have suggested that we consider those numbers to the outliers, chosen arbitrarily for dramatic effect, at a time when the story was still young. If we want to have a good sense of Westerosi economics, we may need to simply discard a few numbers that don't make sense, or that are far out of line with the big picture.

they are in my opinion examples of wild excess, not necessarily implausible but at the same time not useful as metrics of what normal things cost, after all while you can buy bottles of wine costing a million pounds, most even very rich people don't do it all the time.

[astarkchoice]

9 hours ago, Alden Rothack said:

not as far as I know

 

they are in my opinion examples of wild excess, not necessarily implausible but at the same time not useful as metrics of what normal things cost, after all while you can buy bottles of wine costing a million pounds, most even very rich people don't do it all the time.

My head canon is that being a country bumpkin in upper high class whorehouses anguy got taken to the cleaners as they spotted him being a fish out of water a mile off...which in can happen when you see a pretty face or are drunk or flush and he was likely being affected by all 3

He may also have been gambling which occurs in whorehouses or drunkenly offering everyone a free drink/drinks are on me !! Or plainly pickpocketed when drunkenly passed out 

 

Its still an immensely large amount that maybe grmm shoulda dialed down in respect to other things later bought with gold dragons

Edited February 17 by astarkchoice

[Alden Rothack]

22 minutes ago, astarkchoice said:

My head canon is that being a country bumpkin in upper high class whorehouses anguy got taken to the cleaners as they spotted him being a fish out of water a mile off...which in can happen when you see a pretty face or are drunk or flush and he was likely being affected by all 3

He may also have been gambling which occurs in whorehouses or drunkenly offering everyone a free drink/drinks are on me !! Or plainly pickpocketed when drunkenly passed out 

 

Its still an immensely large amount that maybe grmm shoulda dialed down in respect to other things later bought with gold dragons

I have no issues with the amount, even without being robbed or overcharged its very possible to lose any amount of money very quickly, free anything for everyone all night is absolutely a thing that some people do, even people who should know better (which includes Robert but not the archer)

[DemetriusHill]

On 2/17/2024 at 12:02 AM, Aebram said:

I answered my own question by checking the wiki article on "Currency."

The phrase "these exchange rates" refers to an IAF role-playing game, described in the same article, which mentions that the game "did not receive any input from Martin." In the game, one dragon is worth 210 stags.

This, unfortunately, is still not authoritative, because we don't know how many silvers were in "the rest." From our modern perspective, it's natural to conclude that the three dragons represented most of the payment, and the remaining silvers must have been worth something less than one dragon. But in a medieval world, coins were harder to store, transport, and exchange. Maybe the merchant happened to have a large quantity of stags, and he actually paid most of the value with them, just to get rid of them before returning home at the end of the tourney.

But if we assume that the merchant had an ample supply of both dragons and stags, and he didn't use excess stags just to unload them, then Yes, this example does indeed indicate that one dragon is worth something less than 250 stags. It also indicates a lower limit of about 187.5 stags (1/4 of 750), because if it was less than that, the merchant would have paid Dunk with four dragons instead of three.

But of course, we don't know the difference in weight between dragons and stags. So even if we know the dragon-to-stag exchange rate, that doesn't tell us the relative value per ounce of the raw metals. But we can speculate.

Gold is about twice as dense as silver. So if the dragon is ten times the weight of the stag, a coin-to-coin ratio of 200 suggests that gold is worth 20 times as much as an equal weight of silver. That's similar to the real-world exchange rate throughout most of human history (although in recent years it's been much higher.)

Is it reasonable to imagine that dragons weigh ten times as much as stags?  Yes, thanks to tne higher density, and the magic of 3-dimensional geometry.  In the world of Westeros, there are many complexities in assessing value, especially with dragons and stags being used as currency. I myself have been thinking about this question for a long time. Then, to distract myself, I read about luckytigercasino.com or watch a video about it, I found https://ausscasinosanalyzer.com/casino-bonuses/luckytigercasino.com for myself. It really relaxes me. I just lie in bed at night and watch everything before going to bed. True, I wake up with headphones in my ears, which is not good. If the dragon's diameter and thickness are 2.15 times the stag's, then the dragon will weigh about ten times as much as the stag.  So this all seems plausible.

So Ser Duncan's sale isn't authoritative, but it's a data point. Thanks for mentioning it.

Now I want to go reread that story, and see if there are any clues about the actual size or weight of the money, such as how large a bag it filled, how difficult it was to carry, etc. ... unless someone here remembers that?

Your approach to exchange rate analysis sounds logical.

Edited April 28 by DemetriusHill

[Alden Rothack]

On 4/23/2024 at 6:39 PM, DemetriusHill said:

Your approach to exchange rate analysis sounds logical.

twenty times the weight is rather unlikely as it gives you either a dragon weighing too much or a stag weighing too little, more than a dozen times the weight doesn't really work

[Aebram]

On 4/28/2024 at 9:43 AM, Alden Rothack said:

twenty times the weight is rather unlikely as it gives you either a dragon weighing too much or a stag weighing too little, more than a dozen times the weight doesn't really work

I thought so too, at first. But I did the math, and it's actually a reasonable number. 20 to 1 is the exchange rate for silver to gold, which is different from the ratios of monetary values or weights of the actual coins. If you scroll back about 6 posts, you can read how I analyzed it.

[Alden Rothack]

7 hours ago, Aebram said:

I thought so too, at first. But I did the math, and it's actually a reasonable number. 20 to 1 is the exchange rate for silver to gold, which is different from the ratios of monetary values or weights of the actual coins. If you scroll back about 6 posts, you can read how I analyzed it.

I did read it, I agree with most of it

though the exchange rate informs the weights of the coins, its why coins must be a certain size to be worth their face value, bad things happen when commodity money is not worth its face value

still causes problems for stars though, it seems like they would be worth too little

[Aldarion]

For reference, this is Diocletian's attempt at reforming the currency:

aureus - 5,46 g of gold

argentus - 3,41 g of silver

follis - silver-coated bronze

antoninianus - bronze

1 aureus = 24 argentei

1 argentus = 5 follii

1 follis = 5 antoniniani

That being said, attempts at central economic control by the state caused major market irregularities and these values could not be maintained. Gold and silver coinage in particular was slowly withdrawn from the market. Nevertheless, it should provide some idea as to what money should be worth.

[Aebram]

15 hours ago, Alden Rothack said:

still causes problems for stars though, it seems like they would be worth too little

Well, I don't feel like doing another full analysis right now. But a quick check of current prices shows that copper costs about 1/6 as much as an equivalent weight of silver. So if a copper coin weighs 1/4 as much as a silver, its monetary value would be 1/24th as much. That seems feasible.

[Alden Rothack]

7 hours ago, Aebram said:

Well, I don't feel like doing another full analysis right now. But a quick check of current prices shows that copper costs about 1/6 as much as an equivalent weight of silver. So if a copper coin weighs 1/4 as much as a silver, its monetary value would be 1/24th as much. That seems feasible.

Half that for a Star