Timeline for What monetary system did Hobbits use in the Shire?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 25, 2021 at 16:39 | comment | added | IMSoP | @Graham OK, then how about we reword the question as "what did hobbits use as their every-day quantum of value?" The distinction between that and a monetary system feels pedantic to me, and the answer remains "there are mentions of coins, but Tolkien didn't discuss details". | |
| Sep 25, 2021 at 15:57 | comment | added | nick012000 | "There was no need for exchange rates, because you just weighed the coins and that was what they were worth" Technically, there was, because of the fact that coins may not have been made from pure gold/silver/copper. If your silver coin is only 90% silver by weight, it'd only be worth 90% of its weight. | |
| Sep 25, 2021 at 13:02 | comment | added | Graham | @IMSoP Price was in local coins as a local quantum of value, sure. But coins from anywhere else were equally acceptable, at a value which only depended on the weight of the coins (or fractions of coins, as with "pieces of eight" which were one coin cut into fragments to pay for smaller values more conveniently). Foreign coins appeared all over the place, and were used together with local coins with no question about their value. And smaller principalities simply didn't bother minting their own coins as a result. Coinage was a monarch's vanity project, nothing more. | |
| Sep 25, 2021 at 11:37 | comment | added | IMSoP | @ChrisBouchard That's not what the answer says at all, it says that nowhere in Europe had a monetary system. I would say that "locally minted pennies with Arabic or Byzantine gold coins for larger denominations" is still a monetary system - I doubt anybody wrote up prices in ounces of copper, they had a set of recognised coins they could refer to, even if they're not all produced locally, and don't form a neat set of multiples. | |
| Sep 24, 2021 at 20:29 | comment | added | Chris Bouchard | @IMSoP I think the point is there's no indication that The Shire even had their own minted coins. They could very well have just used coins from around Middle Earth by their weight in metal. E.g., until the 13th century England only minted pennies and used Arabic or Byzantine gold coins for larger denominations. | |
| Sep 24, 2021 at 17:39 | comment | added | IMSoP | I'm not sure this answer is even true within its own frame of reference: if you have coins at all, you have some system for labelling and exchanging them. Just because you could theoretically melt down a certain number of denarii and re-cast them as a certain number of drachmae, you can still describe Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece as having different monetary systems. | |
| Sep 24, 2021 at 13:01 | comment | added | Mark Olson | Adulteration of coinage goes back into ancient times. (It's a pretty obvious idea if you are minting coins and short of bullion...) | |
| Sep 24, 2021 at 12:47 | comment | added | Graham | @ZeissIkon Added to the final paragraph to make it a bit clearer about answering the question. | |
| Sep 24, 2021 at 12:47 | history | edited | Graham | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 37 characters in body
|
| Sep 24, 2021 at 12:41 | comment | added | Zeiss Ikon | While very correct in terms of the statements made, this doesn't answer the question at all. While a shilling was literally worth its weight in silver (likely a troy ounce, given there were twelve to the pound sterling), pence, shillings, pounds and so forth carries a much different flavor from dollars and cents or sou and franc. | |
| Sep 24, 2021 at 12:33 | history | answered | Graham | CC BY-SA 4.0 |