WARHAMMER Fantasy Role Play
LIBER FINANCIA
Jason J. Patterson 2012
WARHAMMER FANTASY ROLEPLAY
COINS
AND
WFRP does not use Pounds as its largest value amount, but instead substitutes Gold Crowns (GC), but does keep Silver Shillings (S) and Brass Pence (P). WFRP 1 and 2 Inter-Coin Exchange Rate: 1 Gold Crown = 20 Silver Shillings = 240 Brass Pence 1 Silver Shilling = 12 Brass Pence
MONEY
WFRP 1st and 2nd Edition, primarily set in a fantasy analog to the Holy Roman Empire, and geographically, Germany, specifically under the rule of Emperor Maximillion I, make use of the eventually mostly standardized European and most well known Britush currency system, known as "L.s.d." or "Pounds/Shillings/Pence", from Latin origins, with the "L" (£) standing for Librae (which represents Great British Pounds Sterling as an example, in modern times), "S" for Solidi and "D" for Denarii.
Unfortunately, while the second part of the basic exchange rate is correct (12 pence or pennies = 1 shilling), the first is completely wrong and the pound has been replaced with the gold crown. Also, like the crown substitution, different metals being used for different coins is for easy in-game differentiation of denominations. For the most part, most of WFRP's coinage conventions are pretty inaccurate. And just for trivia: while coins existed that were worth 1 shilling (12 pence), no actual “shilling” coin ever existed.
A pound was an actual weight of one pound of silver, and while this might have reflected a Tower, Troy or Avoirdupois Pound at different times or locations, everything in this work is addressed from the aspect of simplicity and suitability for game use, so it is a standard pound Avoirdupois or Imperial Standard Pound, of 453.59 or 454 grams.
Although coin values fluctuated vastly over the years and centuries in various cultures, in a broad sense, the following could be considered fairly solid standards: Historical Coin 1 Gold Double Sovereign 1 Gold Fine Sovereign 1 Gold Sovereign 1 Gold Royal/Ryal 1 Gold Crown/Angel 1 Gold Noble 1 Gold Dbl. Rose Crown 1 Gold Double Gold Shilling 1 Gold Quarter-Angel 1 Gold Shilling 1 Sixpence 1 Groat 1 Thruppence ("Threepence") 1 Half-Groat 1 Penny
Next, rather than gold being the "coin of the realm", most older economies and especially the L.s.d., were silverbased, so the pound and shillings were both silver – it is the metal coin most people dealt in. In fact, there are 20 silver shillings to the pound because a pound of silver was actually cut into twenty pieces which were made into individual coins, which is where the worn-out term "silver piece" comes from. Moreover, pennies were, for a very long time, also silver coins, merely smaller, because they too, were simply shavings or cuts, either from the larger pound of silver, or from the twenty split "silver pieces", with 240 silver pennies per pound. Only in the late 1600s and later did the actual metal weight and its value began to be replaced by intrinsic value assigned to coins by governments, and so the smaller denominations like pennies were represented by brass or copper.
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= = = = = =
= Value 40 Silver Shillings 30 Silver Shillings = 20 Silver Shillings 15 Silver Shillings = 10 Silver Shillings = 8 Silver Shillings = 5 Silver Shillings 4 Silver Shillings 2.5 Silver Shilling 2 Silver Shillings 6 Pennies 4 Pennies 3 Pennies = 2 Pennies = 4 Farthings
So it is plain that what WFRP calls a "Crown", worth 20 silver shillings, is in fact a Sovereign, which originated in the early 1600s and weighed between 7-10 grams of gold, while each a pound of silver was 435.59 grams, making gold 57.42 - 62.14 times as valuable as silver (without taking each metal's debasement into account), for a simple calculation of "Gold Value = Silver x60" for the 14-1600s.
The pound was usually a unit of account on paper and mostly paid by a "pound note" or bank bill, much like modern paper money, rather than a physical pound of silver, for many payments.
WFRP does not make explicit use of farthings, which were abstractly and literally "a fourth of a penny", meaning when one needed to spend less than a penny, he simply cut a penny into fourths and spent the needed "fourthing", which were irregular shaped slivers of silver, not coins, until they too were assigned intrinsic values and made of other metals.
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While it's nearly impossible to make accurate, useful comparisons between modern and much older eras, due to various differences in government, lifestyles and spans, level of technology, cultures, commerce and other factors, including magic, two universal standards are working for pay and paying for things. Although both have changed significantly over the years, if each are looked at in context only of its own time, used as an analog for its counterpart timeframe, it's possible to draw some rough comparisons.
There are also disagreements about work not being possible during winter for a large number of people, but work was also different and a number of different ways existed to profit and make a living, including barter and trade and helping each other, so for the sake of simplicity, we'll say both serf and modern worker work 280 days per year for an annual wage of 1,680 pence (or 140 shillings or 7 pounds/gold crowns), and of course skilled laborers, tradesmen, merchants and other business owners made much more than this, and an unlucky few (children, servants, women) made even less, but this document uses the 6 p/day baseline. Below is a general low-wage chart for the years 1300 -1950.
For example, unskilled laborers and other jobs that could be considered "wage slave" employment, such as fast food or grocery store cashiers and other entry level positions with little upward mobility or future, could be comparable to WFRP's "Laborer", with some minor adjustments.
Year 1300 1350 1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1925 1940 1950 2012
In most medieval and similar times, a serf also inherited or lived and worked on family land or land leased to him by his lord and he rarely paid rent or other texes other than once a year, and often made his own food and clothes, and there were no utilities such as phones or electricity, but also the few things you did buy ranged anywhere from cheap to outrageous, so it is hard to say what a good direction would be, as far as "leaning" in a conservative or liberal manner, wage and cost-of-living wise, so let us just go with the WFRP standard idea of 6 pence per day, and use that as the "universal" wage. Some historians disagree on how many hours peasants or serfs worked, and if they took naps or breaks and how many perks they got, such as gifts or extra food from their lords and such, but most agree that most peasants did work mostly six-day weeks, and whether farmer or employee, most unskilled workers and laborers made around 6 pence per day, so 36 p (3 shillings) per week.
HLSD 2f 1p 2p 4p 6p 8p 10p 1s or 12p 1s/1p 1s/2p 1s/3p 1s/4p 2s/6s 10s/5p £1/12s/3p £38.70
HUSD
MUSD MUSDPHP $59.00 $118.00 $62.00 $ 62.00 $65.00 $ 32.50 $62.00 $ 15.50 $61.00 $ 10.17 $60.00 $ 7.50 $63.00 $ 6.30 $0.01** $64.00 $ 5.33 $0.02** $59.00 $ 4.54 $0.05** $62.00 $ 4.43 $0.12 $65.00 $ 4.33 $0.30 $62.00 $ 3.88 $0.50 $61.00 $ 3.75 $1.42 $60.00 $ 3.63 $2.00 $63.00 $ 3.52 $4.50 $64.00 $ 3.41 $60.00 $60.00 $ 1.55 per £1.00
HLSD: Historical L.s.d. daily wage (£/s/p) HUSD: Historical USD daily wage MUSD: Modern 2012 USD daily wage equivalent MUSDPHP: Modern USD Equivalent per Historical Pence **: Extrapolated value of USD; didn't exist until 1780s *: The L.s.d. system went metric in 1971 (100 pence = £1)
WFRP MONEY CONVERSION: OPTION I WFRP uses a base minimum wage of 6 p per day for even a Poor quality Laborer, and almost 13p per day for a Farmer, indicating WFRP's nominal timeframe is around the year 1500. If we equate the Laborer to the modern 2012 U.S. minimum wage worker, who makes right at $60.00 (£38.70) per day, but cut back a bit due to eventual taxes and jobrelated expenses, we get around $54.00 (£34.83) per day. Dividing this by the 1500's Poor Laborer's 6 pence, we get $9 (£5.80) per penny. So the Laborer works between 6 and 10 hours a day, and makes 6 pence ($54) a day, 6 days a week, for 3 silver shillings ($324), or $108 per shilling and 6 shillings ($648) for a 2 week paycheck.
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Good Ale, pint Beer, pint Brandy, Bret. Bread, 1/2 lb Butter, 1 lb Cheap Pie Cheese, 1 lb Delicacy Eggs, dozen Fish, fresh, 1 Fish, pickeled, barrel Food per Day, Poor Food per Day, Avg. Food per Day, Good Mead, pint Meat, 30 lb haunch Milk, cow/goat, pint Rations Rotgut, quart Soup, meal Spirits, quart Wine, pint, quality Wine, pint, watered
Although we could leave it at this, to make it more intuitive, let us round all this down by assuming some further job costs, food, fuel, taking a day off now and then, to arrive at $50 per day. Keeping the same work week of 6 days for $300, each penny is worth $8.334 or just $8 to keep it simple. Each penny is: a $5 bill, three $1 bills and a quarter and a dime. Twelve pence make a shilling ($100.00) and 3 shillings is $300.00. Roughly converting the 7 pounds (which WFRP refers to as gold crowns) annual wage of 1510 to 2012 terms equals about $14,000 USD per year, using the other wage figures quoted above. So realize each penny represents $8.33 (£5.36), shillings $100 (£64.49) each, and each gold crown actually works out to $2,000 USD (£1,289.90). It is here that WFRP's prices are really blatant, and obvious that while I can see for game balance, it is conceivable to leave weapon and armor and the more game-related item costs alone, the main problem here is that even with the usual exaggeration we expect from WFRP on some items, the price of cheese and other items here are just beyond astronomical.
Coins 40 s 30 s 20 s 180 p 120 p 96 p 60 p 48 p 30 p 24 p 12 p 11 p 10 p 9p 8p 7p 6p 5p 4p 3p 2p 1p 0.75 p 0.50 p 0.25 p 0.13 p 0.06 p
In the Elizabethan period of Shakespeare's time, roughly the late 1500s and early 1600s, 1 lb. of cheese for a Tudor soldier cost 1.5 p, though cheese should be even cheaper, since WFRP's timeline likely is closer to the early to mid 1500s, given the analogs present between the Empire's KarlFranz and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Maximilian I, who died in 1519. Rather than puzzle over why WFRP thinks cheese needs to be 50 p instead of the 1510 historic 0.72 s per 12 lbs (0.06 s per lb or 0.72 p, not even 3/4 a pence), or a dozen eggs should cost 15 p instead of 0.77 p, I decided to just correct these, rounding up to reflect WFRP's inflated prices.
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Orig. 2p 1p 13 s 2p 30 p 2p 50 p 3 p+ 15 p 2p 3p 5p 10 p 18 p 3p 1s 2p 6s 4p 1p 1s 10 s 1s
WFRP USD2012 2.0 gc 4,000.00 1.5 gc 3,000.00 1.0 gc 2,000.00 15 s 1,500.00 10 s 1,000.00 8s 800.00 5s 500.00 4s 400.00 2.5 s 250.00 2s 200.00 1s 100.00 91.66 83.33 75.00 66.66 58.33 50.00 41.66 33.33 25.00 16.66 4f 8.33 3f 6.24 2f 4.16 1f 2.08 0.50 f 1.04 0.25 f 0.52
New >1p > 0.50 p > 10 p > 0.50 p > 0.50 p >1p > 0.50 p >3p > 0.25 p >2p >3p >3p >6p > 10 p > 0.75 p >1s > 0.06 p >3p >1p > 0.50 >2p >6p >1p
$USD 8.33 4.16 83.33 4.16 4.16 8.33 4.16 25.00 2.08 16.66 25.00 25.00 50.00 83.33 6.24 100.00 0.52 25.00 8.33 4.16 16.66 50.00 8.33
Historical Coin 1 Gold Double Sovereign 1 Gold Fine Sovereign 1 Gold Sovereign/Pound 1 Gold Royal/Ryal 1 Gold Crown/Angel 1 Gold Noble 1 Gold Crown of the Double Rose 1 Gold Double Shilling 1 Gold Quarter-Angel 1 Gold Shilling 1 Silver Shilling
1 Double Groat 1 Sixpence 1 Groat 1 Thruppence/ThreePence 1 Tuppence/TwoPence/Half-Groat 4 Farthings 3 Farthings Ha'Penny/2 Farthings (1/2 Penny) 1 Farthing (1/4 Penny) 1/2 Farthing (1/8 Penny) 1/4 Farthing (1/16 Penny)
WFRP MONEY CONVERSION: OPTION II
COIN SIZES
Now, there is a second way to approach money conversion and understanding, and that is from the commercial goods basis first, determining their value, then extrapolating the value of wages from that.
AND
WEIGHTS
While this is addressed in a different area of work, I will summarize the WFRP extrapolated coin size and weight information here, for the sake of completeness. The WFRP2 core rules and Old World Armoury state that all coins are mechanically identical, and although size isn't specified, a weight of about an ounce per coin is given. This work discounts that assertionfor reasons explained later.
In 2012, a pint (16 oz) of cheap beer, watered to some extent, usually in a plastic cup at some event or even some bars, will cost around $3.64 USD or more, and I don't like "jagged" numbers so I round up to an even $4.00, to represent this 0.50 penny cost, making each penny $8.00 as per Option I without the pocket change. Because I have previously fixed the food prices, I'd need to look at other equipment next, and there are a lot of things to choose from. As noted, I'll leave weapons and such alone because they play an important "reward" role in the game, but it is evident many other things need re-priced, as a $300 belt is a bit flamboyant.
Historically, coins varied greatly, but WFRP uses the Pound/Shilling/Pence system, with the silver shilling being the common coin of exchange for “medium” to “large” purchases, bronze, brass or copper pennies used for everyday incidentals like drink, food, lodging and some supplies, and gold coin transactions of crowns being rare, occurring only among well-to-do citizens, merchants and of course, successful adventurers. Most peasants may have never seen gold coins in their lives, making pennies a day.
Clothing Belt Boots, Riding Breeches Tunic Coat, Light
Keeping a standard symmetry gives a coin about the dimensions and weight of a gold US Sacajawea dollar, about 26 mm (1 inch) in diameter by 2 mm thickness (same as a nickel), weighing about 9 grams or 0.33 standard avoirdupois ounces (not troy).
Orig. 3s 3 gc 15 s 1 gc 3 gc
> New >5p >1s >6p >2p >7p
USD $ 41.66 $ 100.00 $ 50.00 $ 16.66 $ 58.33
Here is a simple guide to “standardized” coins. Dia is diameter given in millimeters (mm), Wid is the coin's width or thickness, also in mm, Gr is the coin's weight in grams, with 28.35 equaling 1 oz.
Now a quick look at inns. It's hard to try to estimate a price for a common room as that isn't really a typical modern arrangement, other than dorms or camp-grounds or such, so it's best to leave the 1-3 p price as a spot in an inn's common room, just a corner of a room or table to collapse into/onto. Inn Service Common Room Private Room Average Inn Meal
Orig. 1-3 p 5s 2p
> New > 1-3 p >7p >2p
USD $8-25.00 $ 58.33 $ 16.66
From the above charts, 9 g (0.33 oz) per coin works out to 3.125 coins per oz, meaning for accounting purposes, 3 coins is an ounce or 28.35 grams, but 48 coins, a multiple of 3, totals 435.456 g, short two 9 g coins of 50, to make 50 coins equal 453.59 g and 16 oz (1 lb or 0.50 kg). This means 25 coins is 1/2 pound or 0.25 kg, etc. 50 coins per pound is a standard found in many game systems, and which makes real-world sense.
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COINS
AND
ENCUMBRANCE
WFRP2 makes use of many Encumbrance formulas to account for objects' real-world weights, bulks and densities, and contradicts itself in each book, so this is my chosen and suggested method for coin Enc. Coins: 10 Coins = 1 Enc = 0.20 lbs or 100 g This reflects coin storage for purses and pouches. Despite the WFRP2 core and Old World Armoury asserting coins weigh roughly “an ounce”, this work replaces this with a value of 1/3 oz per coin. Using this measure, there are 50 coins (5 encumbrance) to a pound (or 500 g), which is a fairly reasonable, simple, historical and easily used average. Unless you're very interested in exacting detail, it's best to ignore fewer than 50 coins for Encumbrance. Coins 1 5 10 50 100 200 300 400 500 750 1000
Enc 0.10 0.50 1 5 10 20 30 40 50 75 100
Lbs 0.02 0.10 0.20 1 2 4 6 8 10 15 20
Coin Measures Oz Kg 0.33 0.01 1.6 0.05 3.2 0.10 16 0.50 32 1 64 2 96 3 128 4 160 5 240 7.50 320 10
G 10 50 100 500 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 7500 10000
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