How Much Is a Gold Piece Worth?
Back in 2006 I asked what a gold piece would be worth in modern currency. Enough has changed in two years (and it seems I made a few miscalculations) that I’ve decided to revisit the topic.
Since 2006, the price of a troy ounce of gold has shot up from US$565 to US$930. Since a troy ounce is actually slightly larger than a regular ounce, a standard pound (sixteen ounces) of gold is worth around US$13,570. With fifty gold pieces in a pound, a gold piece today is worth US$271.41, UK£137.72, or €172.52 to European gamers.
Of course, this assumes that D&D uses our modern pound weight, which before 1958 varied significantly between different countries. There’s also no guarantee that a “gold coin” will be pure gold. Coins intended for circulation have traditionally been made from gold alloyed with copper or silver for better durability.
This also assumes a modern economy, when the relative values of precious metals, goods and services have changed significantly since mediaeval times. If we take the more historically consistent measurement of a pint of common ale, a single gold piece today is worth somewhere between $80 and $160 US, £40-80, or €50-100.
What can I get for a dollar?
Suppose you discover a portal in your basement and decide to emigrate to the City of Greyhawk. What can you expect to be charged for goods and services?
- Manual labour (per day): $27 (gold standard), $12 (beer standard). Modern day ranges from $46.8 (USA federal minimum) to $87 (UK minimum).
- Mercenary (per day): $81 (gold standard), $36 (beer standard). Plus danger pay. Modern day equivalent is around $219.
- Tent: $2,700 or $1,200. More than a little off-base at ten to thirty times the cost of the modern counterpart.
- Riding horse: $20,250 (gold standard), $9,000 (beer standard). Half as much for a pony, and five times as much for a military grade mount. Surprisingly close to a modern-day motor vehicle.
Things get a little crazy when we move into the “strictly adventurers only” price range:
- Masterwork weapon: $39,600 to $89,100.
- Belt of Strength +4: Doubles the wearer’s physical strength for between £1.92 million and $4.32 million
- Warship: $3 million to $6.7 million.
- Ring of Three Wishes: $11.8 million to $26.4 million
Finally, for further comparison, consider what these real-world items would cost a D&D character to buy:
- Nonmasterwork handgun: 7sp - 14 sp, ammunition 1-2cp per ten bullets
- Car: around 75gp to 150gp; fuel costs 1cp/ten miles
- F-15E fighter jet: 222,000 to 500,000 gp, likely out of the price range of a single non-epic character
- Aircraft carrier: 16.7 to 37.5 million gp. Without aircraft.
April 13th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Considering in the PHB, you get given the size, & weight of a gold coin, couldn’t the purity be guessed at for more accuracy?
April 14th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Rue: It’s trickier than it seems. The Players Handbook only gives us the width of a gold piece (30mm) and weight (one fiftieth of a pound), but doesn’t give us any measurement for the thickness.
Assuming I correctly remember my chemistry, the coin’s thickness would be equal to the mass (9.07g) over the density, divided by the coin’s face area (0.94cm2). From this we can calculate the thickness of the coin, given a certain purity of gold.
A pure gold coin would have a thickness of 5mm, or about one fifth of an inch. However, since the gold piece is in wide circulation the odds are it’s gold alloy for durability. Crown gold, or 22 carat gold, would make the coin 5.2mm thick. If we only use 75% gold and the rest copper, it can be as thick as 5.8mm. The thickest would probably be 9 carat gold at 7.5mm, although at this point the coin would be mostly copper.
Interestingly, all D&D coins are supposed to be the same size and weight, meaning that they only vary in thickness. This suggests the following thicknesses for coinage, all of which are 30mm wide:
Platinum: 4.5mm
Electrum: 6.5mm
Silver: 9.3mm
Copper: 10.7mm
April 14th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Haha! Amazing stuff. You even fit in Electrum!
My thinking is that it seems like Gold is of lesser value in a fantasy setting than in a real world setting, no?
You really figured this out though! Will be linking!
April 14th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
1 cm thick copper coins? That’d be -heavy-.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:54 am
Interesting article, thanks!
@Zaratustra: remember, all coins are supposed to have the same weight :P
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:08 pm
@ Juan
Yeah, it seems that gold is certainly of less worth in a fantasy setting, but it’s fantasy and thus there’s a fair amount of handwaving anyway. I hadn’t expected the coins to be that thick though… those are freaking huge… You kind of have to wonder at where they got all that gold in the first place though, as even if there was a single dragon’s treasure as large as Smaug’s from the Hobbit around in the world and then gold coins are much less in circulation among the regular populace than copper and silver as is generally hinted at in the PHB, there must have been a solid nodule of gold about a half-mile thick somewhere in the crust of the earth that people carved out in the past…. which would be really cool, actually.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:48 am
The tent styles you would find in a fantasy setting are in keeping with the prices you have. Check out http://www.pantherprimitives.com/medieval.html - the smallest tent of the appropriate style for medieval/renaissance Europe-type civilisations is US$1320 for:
10 x 10 foot tent in basic canvas, not marine canvas
poles, ropes, and stakes
canvas in alternating colours (typical - solid colour would be US$1125)
Ground pimples (the nylon things) aren’t the right style. You don’t wanna know how hard this would be to transport without a cart.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:14 am
So I guess the hypothetical question is, would it be worth dropping $4.32 million on a +4 Belt of Strength if you could use it while playing professional sports.
I am thinking linebacker in the NFL ?