Obsidian Coins

[Angela Christine]

I was thinking about glass coins again, and wondering why they don't break all the time, slicing up everyone's fingers.  Then I got thinking about the glass marbles kids carry around in bags.  Do kids still play with marbles?  Anyway, you could shoot your marbles, drop your marbles, and even lose your marbles, but I never heard of anyone breaking their marbles.  I'm sure it must happen occasionally, but it isn't common.  I assume it has something to do with the shape?  Allanaki coins aren't spheres, but perhaps the disks are much thicker than metal coins, the thickness might be .5 the radius, perhaps even more.

Having the coins pressed or molded out of molten glass might make them more stable than carving them out of obsidian shards.  Tiny flakes of carved obsidian sound like a sure recipe for shattering to me.  You would need fantastic temperature control to re-melt obsidian.  Trapped bubbles of air, water, or other impurities could explode.  You also have to control the rate at which it cools, too slow and the glass can crystallize and you don't want that.  This would be difficult, but not necessarily more difficult for the Highlord's minions than having hundreds of highly skilled artisans carving tiny glass coins without slicing their fingers to ribbons.  Molding glass is dangerous, but it doesn't require as much skill as cutting it.  

- As an added bonus, the coins could be made with "scrap" obsidian, bits that are not useful for other things because of their size, shape, or texture.  

- They might even cut the obsidian with other minerals to increase the strength or standardize the colour and feel of the finished coins.  Raw obsidian comes in a variety of colours and can look quite mottled.

- Molded coins would also be much more difficult to counterfeit.  Any doofus can find some obsidian and a set of tools, but even a Krathi or Rukkian would have difficulty safely melting the obsidian without special training.  There are some indications that the coins have images on them, easy to do with molds, but again very difficult and time consuming to do when carving the coins by hand.


Here are some molded glass medallions, as you can see the images can be quite detailed.  Um, just imagine that they used black glass and didn't stick bits on to make them easier to hang.  Stupid sun-catchers.
http://www.fernsgarden.com/kitras_catchers.asp
http://www.hotglassworks.net/coins/

Here are some links about molded glass, the history of glass, and so on.  Glass has been around for a looong time.  Since we've been doing it on Earth since 1500 BC, it probably isn't an unreachable technology for Zalanthans.
http://www.pressed-glass.ip3.co.uk/
http://www.glassonline.com/infoserv/history.html
http://users.ticnet.com/mikefirth/gl-hist.htm

Just for fun, here are a couple links about people melting obsidian and other things in their microwave ovens.  Why?  Because they are crazy.
http://amasci.com/weird/microexp.html#magma
http://groups.google.ca/group/sci.geo.geology/browse_thread/thread/be3c7fdd823d99be

And of course, the obligitory link to the similar discussion we had last year.
http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7750


Thoughts?


Angela Christine

[Ritley]

I think you think to much......    I think obsidian is a little bit harder than normal glass, otherwise they wouldn't make swords out of them. Also, I think thick glass is quite strong. The glass from our windows, and stuff is two very thin layers. Four or five centimetres of glass would be quite strong, I believe. Hope it answers your question, your more intelligent than I am though, so you will probably find a better solution than me.

[sarahjc]

I always thought of them as those little flatish round chips that are used in candlescapes with a nice little symbol on them. Smooth and not flat enough to be an easily caught or breakable or chipped surface, but also not round enough to be a marble and roll away.

[LauraMars]

I want to hold some obsidian coins.  I know what they feel like in my imagination.  Shiny and smooth.

They'd be very small, also, because people are always paying out hundreds and thousands of them.  I mean, 400 coins for a kank.  That's a lot of coins.  400 pennies would be very heavy and a lot to haul around.

[facehugger]

They'd be very small, also, because people are always paying out hundreds and thousands of them.  I mean, 400 coins for a kank.  That's a lot of coins.  400 pennies would be very heavy and a lot to haul around.

I've always sort of assumed that there were multiple denominations built into it. Nothing coded, mind you, simply something you can RP through. Buying that 1,100 coin silk dress? Dropping 5,000 on that set of custom armor? That's hidious to count out, and to carry around. So 10 "coin" coins, 100 "coin" coins, so on.

[Dalmeth]

When I think about it, I doubt the obsidian coins are very intricately worked.  In fact, I imagine them as just chips of obsidian that have been worked so that they don't cut up a user's hand.  I think obsidian is a bit too brittle to have much more done to it.

[Delirium]

If you actually read AC's post, you might come to a different conclusion.

I like the idea of molded glass, and I've always liked the idea of "virtual" denominations.  I read somewhere that the immortals didn't like that and that virtual denominations don't exist, which disappointed me but led me to simply rp that coins are usually carried around in little pouches, pouches which most commoners learn to judge the weight of pretty accurately.

Shrug.

[RunningMountain]

I always thought the coins had tektolnes face imprinted on them. And each ones were different for higher amounts of purchases. So if you did buy siomething for 1000 coins, you didn't really use 1000, you used 10 of the other coin with tektolnes fist on it, whatever.

[Dan]

If that were the case, then the coins wouldn't weigh a fricking ton when you had 8000 on your person.

[Angela Christine]

If you are carrying a 1000 'sid coin, and a pickpocket steals 30 sid off you, do you have to make change?  

I don't think there are denominations.



Angela Christine

[Gribble]

I always pictured obsidian coins less like the size of quarters and more like the size of cliche medieval coins. Like.... thick and... I dont know, not sharp. Kinda like:



And I imagine few coins are ever dropped, there would be elves diving for them before they hit the ground.

[Medena]

I always pictured obsidian coins less like the size of quarters and more like the size of cliche medieval coins. Like.... thick and... I dont know, not sharp.

That's exactly what I pictured too. Like about .5 cm thick.  That thick, I don't think they'd be that breakable, especially if the edges were smooth.

I have not pondered a great deal about how they are made but I guess I kind of pictured a boring tool that would stamp/cut/bore the coin right out of an obsidian deposit.

[Delirium]

If you are carrying a 1000 'sid coin, and a pickpocket steals 30 sid off you, do you have to make change?   :D

I don't think there are denominations.



Angela Christine

Nah, you were carrying several fifties, a few twenty-fives, some fives, and several ones.

They grabbed a twenty-five and a five.

[RunningMountain]

It can't be easy. Or else someone would have come up with counterfeiting by now.

[Gribble]

It can't be easy. Or else someone would have come up with counterfeiting by now

I imagine coins are extremely uniform, and that the process is pretty much fine tuned and maybe assisted with a little magicky magicky from the Highlord. Because if they are not all uniform, it would be very easy to fool people... heck, even if they are uniform looking, if your dealing with a sack of 2000 coins, what would stop you from filling the bottom half of the bag with rocks and putting coins over the top.

[RunningMountain]

Hmm,. wait a minute, how do we know people aren't counterfeiting them?

[Dalmeth]

Hmm,. wait a minute, how do we know people aren't counterfeiting them?

Counterfeiting would be impossible if the coins themselves had value, which I myself doubt they do.   Which brings up the question, what is the value of obsidian coins based on?  Is a certain weight in obsidian worth something like say a certain measurement of water?

[Larrath]

Hmm,. wait a minute, how do we know people aren't counterfeiting them?

Simple.  It would take a talented jeweler around half an hour to create a single obsidian piece.  For the same effort and using the same materials, he could make half of a pendant that he could sell for fifty times as much.


...And who said elves don't fill up bags partially with 'sids and the rest with rocks?

[Rindan]

It can't be easy. Or else someone would have come up with counterfeiting by now.

Counterfitting is only worthwhile if the final product is worth more then the parts it took to make it.  If one stone worth of obsidian coins is worth more as a one stone hunk then it is as one stone of obsidian coins, then people will not bother to counterfeit as they could make more money simply selling a hunk of obsidian.  Hell, if the value of a coin is even close the value of a hunk of obsidian, people wouldn't bother to counterfeit.

Imagine for a moment if there was a 100 dollar American coin.  Imagine now that the materials to make this 100 dollar American coin cost $105.  Would you bother to counterfeit it?  What if the materials cost $90, but it took five hours to make a coin.  Would five hours of your life and the risk of being caught be worth $10?

Why would the value of an obsidian coin be worth less then its parts?  Well, Tek has a very easy way to set the price of obsidian.  A 'sids worth is probably very strongly tied to how much old Tek charges for water.  Tek might very well decide to value an obsidian coin less then the worth of its parts.  He has the biggest obsidian mines in the known world and so can afford to kill off a little value in exchange for making it so that no one can counterfeit his coins.  Being the singular source of a stable currency in the world is a damn nice position to be in.