Wilem had been acting bored since they arrived in Unster. “Don’t do this.” “Don’t do that.” “Don’t do the other thing.” His two taller companions had drilled into him all the things he shouldn’t do in this city. All these years together and they still treated him like a little kid instead of the professional that he was. It wasn’t his fault things accidentally fell into his possession, it was the curse of the ublilin as his mother always said.

No matter how bored he looked or how long he was keeping up the act his companions were doing an unfortunately amazing job of watching him like a hawk. He was getting quite bored of the whole game as they entered the harbor market. Actually he was getting quite bored with this white and green city! All these gnomes, halflings, and others seemed to be flitting about the city and absolutely no games were afoot. He hadn’t seen a single pick pocket and this was supposed to be some exciting city... What was wrong with these people?

The local constabulary seemed to be running about in almost jokester costumes pretending to be armor while lugging around pretty looking sticks. A few did have spears that were also pretty to look at, but in either case he would be surprised if the sticks didn’t break on first contact with the enemy.

The three of them had made their way through the harbor market down closer to the harbor when he noticed Vance setting down his two massive sacks of gear. Apparently they were finally wherever they were going and it was time for him to get to work.

The almost six foot tall mass of man felt naked without his armor on. He wasn’t sure if the short ublilin thief standing next to him made him feel safer or not. The two massive bags at the paladin’s feet contained his arms and armor, but did nothing to make him worry less. This crazy city seemed to have delusional people running around. He couldn’t grasp how not seeing weapons or armor would make people safer. The town guard patrolled the streets with light armor and large sticks, but the outer alabaster wall supposedly had real gear. At the very least they kept the alligators on the far side of the river away from the residents.

His two shorter companions seemed to be annoying the merchants trying to close up their stalls in the harbor market for the night. Dove, the taller of the shorties and the oldest of the group, had insisted they “camp out” in the harbor market. It was just another annoyance on top of a list of other annoyances with this place, but the illyar’s argument lined up with part of why they were there. She needed a place to play her harp and talk with other travellers.

He rubbed at his neck as his cool blue eyes scanned the crowded harbor market. Merchants were shewing off final customers of the day as they tried packing up their carts and baskets to clean out their stalls. He noted a younger elfin traveller plop his pack on the ground outside a nearby stall, a bored look on his face as he waited for the day’s merchant to clear out. He turned to get Dove’s attention.

Dove slapped the ublilin’s hand and yanked his hair.

“Ouch!” Wilem cried.

“Don’t think about it,” she replied tersely.

“I was going to ask her how much!”

“Likely,” she retorted. Dove noticed Vance trying to get her attention and looked where he was indicating. The indicated was a young elfen male dressed straight out of the Fae military, an odd site outside the Fae Kingdom. She turned back to Wilem, “behave, I need to introduce myself to someone.” She pulled out her harp and started to strum it as she hummed, trying to think of a tune he might recognize. She settled her mind on a tune and set her course toward him. Strumming and singing she went expecting to see a smile of recognition on his face.

His bored expression flashed with realization as she got closer, and soured.

“Stop,” he stated. “I’ve no coin for that tune.”

The strumming of the harp and the soft siren call flowing from her lips ended suddenly. “I haven’t seen the uniform since the last time I was in the Fae Kingdom and I thought you’d appreciate the song.”

“I fulfilled my mandate and now I’m away from there. Hopefully never to return.”

Now she thought she knew what was off about the elfen man. “A half and they treated you like a bastard?”

“Aye, a bastard,” he replied with frustration.

“Not all elfin kind will treat you that way,” she tried to cheer him up.

“Then they don’t know my father.”

She was taken aback by this as why should that matter? “You are right. I don’t know him. I am Dove,” she waved in the direction of her companions. “And those two louts are currently my travelling companions.”

“I am Kaylith. Why though are you assaulting me with a song?”

“Besides waiting for another companion we’re also collecting news for our patron. We’ll be heading over the mountains towards the Fae Kingdom so any news on what we can expect would be useful.”

“Well, I’m almost three weeks out from there. I carried an ambush report to Kurdwood and then forwarded it to here.”

“An ambush report?”

“Yes, unfortunately I don’t know much of the details. A Fae encampment was ambushed and the elfs apparently routed the goblinoid raiders. The remains point to raiders rather than an actual military band.”

“I assume you’re planning to enjoy the night here in the harbor market?” He nodded. “You should join us for dinner and share in some tales from the road. We’ll play some music and sing... Well, better songs.”

“I’m sorry for my bad reaction. I’d appreciate the diversion. Once I’m moved in for the night I’ll make my way over.”

“See that you do or I may have to send the ublilin over.”

“The who?”

“Wilem, the shorter of the two. I’d try to send Vance as intimidation, but he’s been paranoid without his arms and armor.”

“Hah, something we have in common then. Fine, for sure I’ll be by, at least to laugh at the bear of a man.”

Later as the three sat around their campfire and Vance was finishing up the tale of a recent exploit Wilem tilted his head, “do I hear our guest?”

“Don’t scare him off, you little fiend,” warned Dove.

The younger half elfen appeared around the stall and they waved him in to sit at their fire. His camp bowl appeared in his hands and Wilem reached to fill it. Kaylith warily let the ublilin take the bowl. “So you’re heading over towards the Fae Kingdom?” Kaylith queried as he closely watched as Wilem filled and returned his bowl.

“We’re heading to meet friends in Kurdwood and then we’re to patrol down the Barntham River. There are rumors of dark things running in the woods. Any recent tales or stories, no matter how strange, would be useful,” responded Vance as Dove lightly plucked her harp and hummed distractedly.

Kaylith took his meaning, “over the last couple of years we’ve been getting an increase in goblinoid raids, just orcs and goblins mostly. Not much in consistent tribal markings so leadership assumed displacement or abandonment.”

Dove chimed in, “as if something else is pushing them out of their roaming grounds.”

“Exactly,” stated Kaylith. “Mostly smaller groups and easily taken care of. And then, the ambush.”

“Ambush?” Wilem perked up.

“Various elfen units were collecting in a camp to the north and west of Kurdwood, a small army to be sure. I had been sent to dig out along the outer way. I had started a good hole when I noticed something, not really sure what. Next I knew I was staring down a hobgoblin with naught, but my shovel and a shout. I guess I got the shovel up fast enough to block his blow as next I knew I woke up packed nice and neat in my hole with a hobgoblin as a blanket.”

Dove stopped plucking and looked a dead stare at him, “invisibility? How and where would they get that?”

“Apparently it wasn’t just the one as they got my entire unit, but not before they plugged my assailant full of arrows.”

“Sorry for the loss,” piped Vance.

“No love lost.”

“Someone so young shouldn’t be so cynical,” retorted Dove.

“They taught me things true, but were at the end of a list of reasons for leaving. I cleaned up the rest of the camp pulling out other survivors as I waited to find out who won. I assume we did as the elf lord in charge dismissed me from service by having me deliver a letter recounting the mess.”

“I hope Kevus has ideas for dealing with that,” sighed Vance.

Wilem chuckled, “we could cover camp with trip wire and bells like we did that one time.”

Vance humphed, “I was hoping to forget that.”

Wilem laughed and Dove rolled her eyes. Kaylith asked and the night delved into a story of an old adventure.

Short version: Alternate game monetary system based on the Spanish dollar (aka pieces of eight) or rather the United States 90% silver coinage starting at Morgan and Peace dollars working all the way down to the copper penny. This easily handles everything from gold pieces all the way down to copper pieces in the game monetary scale. Let’s start at the high end & work our way down.

Replace the platinum piece with a gold half eagle $5 coin (8.359 grams, 1/4 the size of the $20 Saint Gaudens double eagle). Replace the gold piece with a silver coin that could look like a Spanish silver dollar or a Morgan or Peace silver dollar (26.7 grams). Replace the electrum piece with a Barber, Walking Liberty, Franklin, or JFK like half-dollar (12.5 grams). Replace the silver piece with a Barber, Winged Liberty (aka Mercury), or Roosevelt 90% silver dime (or disme at 2.5 grams). The copper piece could remain copper, but the United States copper alloy pennies, both brass and bronze, weigh in at 3.11 grams. Quarters would be a new spot between electrum and silver pieces worth 25 copper pieces, use them or not.

Half-dollars (12.5 grams), quarters (6.25 grams), and dimes (2.5 grams) all weigh in at 0.25 grams per one cent of value and making pennies and dollars fit into this weight dynamic you could simply multiply your penny weight value by 0.25 grams or your fractionalized gold piece total weight by 25 grams. Actual gold coins at the platinum piece level (so above the normal gold piece or gp) you could multiply by 8 grams per platinum piece value.

Many different editions of game systems want players to keep track of each type of coin they have collected and assume all the coins weigh exactly the same amount, 50 coins per pound. This kind of makes me think of 1 troy ounce bars and rounds in modern life, but if you make your way down to your local coin shop you’ll soon discover there’s a massive difference in value between that gold, silver, and copper. Even more so with all the economic shenanigans currently going on. Various gaming groups I’ve been a part of over time joked about buying gold and silver pieces. When the gold colored Sacagawea dollars (not actually gold) came out in 2000 we joked about finding gold pieces.

The combination of a couple of things going on and trying to write a book has me looking at monetary systems again. Remember the Ferengi gold-pressed latinum slips or strips? I think something akin to the Goldbacks and Silverbacks would actually work... But that would be modern or futuristic. For this article I want to look back into history and give some ideas for an alternate medieval fantasy monetary system.

For decades people have been complaining back and forth about the money system in this game or that game. The weights don’t make sense. The value doesn’t match. Lots of valid complaints for wanting something different.

Most campaigns I’ve been a part of the money was mostly a system of accounting running in the background and just a question of weight. For a few games with weird money systems it was interesting to begin with and then it got stuck in the minutiae of money changers when everybody just wanted to go on an adventure. There’s a lot of campaigns where players are running around with dragon hoards of gold and gold no longer has any meaning.

I wanted to come up with a bit more realistic metal monetary system with some basis in reality that I can simply slip into the existing gaming monetary system. I’ve been digging through various info I can find online about Roman coins and others. Something I noticed about Roman coins is that a good portion of them across the middle values were silver.

I remember somehow associating a gold piece for a dollar and then it just easily flowed down fractionally with copper pieces being United States one cent pieces (aka a penny). I’m sure I’m not the only person who decimalized it similarly. The part where it never clicked with weights though was because I was always looking at the paper currency and that really doesn’t equate very well to metals.

Back in March I finally picked up a less expensive circulated $20 Saint Gaudens double eagle to include with my 90% silver coins I’ve been using to educate people on older coins and their value. That’s a twenty dollar coin sitting amongst twenty Morgan dollars. After all these years something finally clicked that the paper currency never allowed for.

Talking with older generations about what they could get with our (United States) 90% silver coins I get different stories like a gallon of gas only cost a quarter. Depending where you are in the country today you should be able to take a 90% silver quarter to a coin shop and get enough cash to pay for a gallon of gas. My mom has stated she bought a dozen eggs for a quarter, but I wonder if it was two dozen? That same 90% silver quarter converted to cash could pay for one or two dozen eggs depending on type and brand. I may even be able to get three dozen depending on where I am in the country.

Eggs are something that did exist in medieval times and usually exists in several game systems pricing sheets. 2nd Edition Player’s Handbook for one system lists an egg or fresh vegetables at a cost of 1 copper piece. It also lists two dozen eggs at two silver pieces (20 copper pieces) and one hundred eggs at eight silver pieces (80 copper pieces). If we go back to 1 copper piece per egg and multiply by two dozen we end up with twenty four copper pieces, just 1 penny shy of a quarter. Hmm...

In 1497 AD, following monetary reform in the Spanish Empire, the Spanish dollar was first minted. It was worth eight Spanish reales, hence the name pieces of eight. It became so popular that it became the first international currency because of its uniformity. Other nations stamped their seal on it in order for it to be traded locally with their own currency. The Spanish dollar became the “gold standard”, pun intended, for silver coins and was the coin used as the standard for what the United States silver dollar should be in 1857. For more real world history on this I suggest looking at the Spanish Dollar on Wikipedia as it may give some historical ideas for campaign background.

So what about weight? I’m used to dealing with troy ounces for metals, but we need a smaller unit of measure and grams seem to work for that. Our target unit of weight for games tends to be the pound for those of us in the States. Those using other units of weight will probably have an easier time with this conversion.

There are 453.59 grams in a pound and a Morgan dollar, according to Wikipedia, is 26.73 grams which would allow for 16.969 Morgan’s per pound (double check below when I standardize & re-weight). So with some wear and tear maybe we say 17 Morgan or Peace dollars in a pound. If you want to go for a heavier weighted coin we could use a one troy ounce round as an example and at 14.5833 troy ounces per pound you could say 14-15 coins per pound. But these weights should be for newly minted coins hot off the press. After many years of circulation and clipping or shaving would make them weigh less.

Going back to the 50 coins per pound and looking again at 90% silver coins where does this put us? At 453.59 grams in a pound the coins would have to weigh an average of 9.0718 grams. The 90% silver quarters weigh in at 6.25 grams, too light. The 90% silver half-dollars weigh in at 12.5 grams, too heavy. The 90% silver dimes weigh 2.5 grams, but the modern dimes come in at 2.268 grams... So about four of the modern dimes is the weight we’re looking for as the weight for one of those 50 coins coming in around 9 grams.

Multiplying this 50 coins in a pound number by the four dimes we need for that average weight puts us at 200 coins. Taking the 453.59 grams divided by the 2.268 grams of the modern dime gives us 199.99559. Initially I wasn’t quite sure where I was going with this, but figured it might be useful for someone else trying to math out some of this information. However, when I got to the end and rounded to 20 full size coins I ended up with 200 silver dimes per pound.

If the Morgan or Peace dollar takes the place of the gold piece, the 90% silver half-dollar (Barber, Walking Liberty, Franklin, or JFK) fit perfectly as the electrum piece, and the 90% silver dime (or disme as originally written in the Coin Act) is a 10th of the dollar and fits as the silver piece (which is a 10th of the gold piece). When we get down to the copper piece we can look at the United States’ copper coins. Nickels are 75% copper and 25% nickel.

The first one cent coins were about 100% copper and heavy (13.4 grams and then 10.8 grams), then an 88% copper and 12% nickel (4.6 grams) version, and then we get to the 3.1 gram 95% copper pennies that most people have seen. Most of the 95% copper pennies were bronze (5% tin and zinc), but a two year stint after the war were brass or gilded metal (5% zinc). During World War II when both copper and nickel were needed for other things we ended up with steel pennies (2.7 grams) and 35% silver nickels (56% copper and 9% manganese). The current modern pennies are 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper with a weight of 2.5 grams.

Be aware that salt water will wear away the zinc in brass fairly quickly. This is why brass near the ocean is usually gilded with an overlay of copper or another metal to prevent the corrosion. The steel pennies had problems of their own, but it was a temporary stop gap for a year after which they melted them down as they were turned in.

Bouncing through all of these coins can we find a common weight? With the copper piece or penny being the lowest common denominator, let’s divide these weights down to their one cent value. The Morgan and Peace dollars come in at 0.2673 grams per cent. Half-dollars give us a weight of 0.25 grams per cent. Quarters at 6.25 grams give us a weight of 0.25 grams per cent. The dimes easily give us a cent weight of 0.25 grams. And the zinc penny gives us a weight of 2.5 grams.

Maybe we shave a bit off the Morgan and Peace dollars and rebalance them to be 0.25 grams per penny value so they weigh the same as the other silver coins? If we do that, then our gold piece dollar comes out at 25 grams allowing for 18.1436 “dollars” of silver per pound. This also means our dragon hoard of gold turns into a dragon hoard of silver

How then do we bring gold in? Gold is a much softer and denser metal and is usually mixed with copper or silver for stronger coins. The United States $20 Saint Gaudens double eagle weighs in at 33.436 grams. That’s 1.075 troy ounces, but there’s only 0.9675 troy ounces of gold in the coin. This makes it a 90% gold coin with the remaining 10% being copper. The UK gold coins in the above picture are one ounce of gold, 1/4 ounce of gold, and 1/10 ounce of gold. The smaller bar and round are one gram each. The jewelry piece I believe comes in at about 4 grams total, but only the three rocks are gold, the metal holding everything together is just colored to look gold.

If we go back to our game system monetary chart we see that a platinum piece is supposed to be worth five of the gold pieces. Since we are using a Morgan silver dollar as a gold piece we should be looking for a gold coin worth five dollars. This would line up with the United States half eagle gold coin which is 1/4 the weight of the double eagle Saint Gaudens coin making it about a quarter ounce of gold.

The above picture should give you an idea of the size difference between similarly weighted/sized coins between gold and silver. The Morgan and Peace dollar is 26.7 grams and the Saint Gaudens coin is 33.436 grams, a full 6.7 grams heavier. The 90% silver quarters are 6.25 grams while the 1/4 troy ounce gold coin on top of it is about 7.77 grams. The 90% silver dime is 2.5 grams while the 1/10 troy ounce gold coin on top of it is about 3.11 grams. The gold is heavier so a close to similar weight is going to be a smaller coin.

If we want to expand upon this and have a framework for coins of different sizes and weights beyond what the game system has we can keep with the dollar value framework. Looking at the value of the Morgan silver dollar and the $20 gold double eagle we have a value of 20 of the silver coins for 1 of the gold coins of the same size. If for some reason you want to do the same with copper we can look at the penny and dime are about the same size and weight so maybe you say it takes 10 copper coins to equal a silver of the same size. I’m not sure how many civilizations would have a coin about the size of a Morgan or Saint Gaudens that’s only worth a dime. Maybe if that civilization has massive amounts of copper, but little to no gold or silver?

We can keep track of the metal and the “gold piece” or “dollar value” (or the Morgan value, or your own name value). Say my civilization likes Crowns and Moons so they have gold crowns and silver moons. Base the silver moon the same as the Morgan silver dollar and it slides into the gold piece (1 gp) slot. They also mint a half-moon (1 ep or 2 sp), a quarter moon (25 cp or 2 sp and 5 cp), a moon disme (1 sp) as silver coins. Now they also have a gold crown (20 gp), half-crown (10 gp), quarter crown (5 gp or 1 pp), a crown disme (2 gp). They also have a pan (5 cp) and a dink (1 cp). They also tried a silver tiger (2 gp), but most natives don’t like it as they tend to use silver half-moons or smaller for groceries and shopping.

My base silver moon is 25 grams and my base gold crown is 25 grams. Using the above calculated weight for silver dollars per pound, every 18.1436 of silver moons weighs a pound. Likewise, every 362.872 (gp or silver moon value) of gold crowns weighs a pound.

Those numbers are a bit complex so let’s simplify and round up. Every 20 of the base coin weighs a pound. That means every 20 silver moons (that’s 20 gp) weighs a pound. Every 20 full gold crowns (or 400 gp of value) weighs a pound. Every 20 copper based coin that a dink is a 10th of would weigh a pound.

A dink (1 cp) is a 10th size of a copper coin that would be the same size as a Morgan, or in this case a silver moon. The copper coin the size of the silver moon would take 20 of the coin to weigh a pound so at a 10th it would take 200 of these coins to weigh a pound. The pan, if made only of copper, would essentially be a half size of the full copper coin only allowing for 40 per pound. If instead the pan was a mixed metal and more the size of a quarter you could have 80 per pound.

In this way a character could be carrying around 10 dinks; 4 pans; 10 moon dismes, 8 quarter moons, 10 half moons, 7 silver moons (total of 15 moons); and 2 quarter crowns, 3 half crown, and 1 crown (3 gold crowns) weighing a full pound. The total gold piece (gp) of value he’s carrying around would be (10 / 100) + ((4 x 5) / 100)+ 15 + (3 x 20) = 75.3gp. Or copper (cp) value to gold (gp) 10 + (4 x 5) + (15 x 100) + (3 x 2000) = 7,530 cp / 100 = 75.3 gp.

Now I have my currency based somewhat on old real money. Weights and values make a little bit more sense and there’s a bit of room to fit other metals in.

Electrum is just a naturally occurring instance of gold and silver together. In the modern world it’s just considered an alloy as some of the gold coins use silver, instead of copper, to make them more resistant to wear and tear. That second metal is what gives the gold coins their different hues.

Platinum and palladium are mostly industrial metals these days. Platinum coins were attempted by Spain in Spanish colonized America and later by the Russian Empire. Other countries including the United States and Britain attempted to make coins out of platinum as well. Counterfeiters used it to fake gold and silver coins. Platinum is a very hard metal and not very malleable, plus it tends to be confused for other metals like silver.

While most governments found the metal frustrating for coinage merchants actually preferred the platinum because the coins wouldn’t melt in fires. It wasn’t until over 100 years later that Russia started creating commemorative coins for the 1980 Summer Olympics that got other countries looking at minting coins in platinum again. Canada has a platinum Maple Leaf and Australia has a platinum Koala among them.

There are things I learned long ago, things I’ve recently learned, and things I’m currently trying to wrap my brain around that I get asked questions about. When I finally work through something and figure it out I assume I was just dumb and stupid for not having understood it before and everybody else just already knew. However, I keep coming across people who have never heard this tidbit or that tidbit of knowledge I discovered... from other people or from my own stupidity that smarter people avoided. I do not have all of the answers, in some cases I just have boards covering potholes to prevent stumbling over things that should be avoided.

Debt is the currency of slaves.
Silver is the currency of gentlemen.
Gold is the currency of royalty.

Gold and silver have been money and currency, or a battery storage of wealth (shout out to Bald Guy Money on YouTube), for thousands of years. Why do we need the shiny rock metal now that we have paper currency? Do we even need paper currency now that we have digits? Why are my digits buying less this year than last year? There are massive debates about Keynesian vs. Austrian Economics and all sorts of other ideas I’m not going to touch on and bore people with, but you should look up more information on these topics and study them.

For this, I’m going to stick to KISS… Keep It Simple. 

What is the difference between these two 90% silver coins? Keep your answer really simple as I’m going to go through a couple of these so I’m not looking for a complicated answer.

What’s the difference between these two pieces of gold? Again, where I’m going with this is pretty simple so don’t make it too complex of an answer.

What’s the difference between these two pieces of 999 silver? Again, keep the answer simple.

What’s the difference between these two pieces of paper, a linen and cotton mix? There’s a picture of a different guy and the number is different? Notice that both are a Federal Reserve Note.

Gold is the money of kings.
Silver is the money of the people.
Barter is the money of peasants.
Debt is the money of slaves.

The first paper currency I’m aware of Congress issuing was Continentals. It was valued against the different State monies at different rates. Five Georgia shillings, six New Hampshire shillings, all the way up to 32 and a half South Carolina shillings. Unfortunately monetary policy hadn’t been coordinated between Congress and the States and the States continued to issue their own bills of credit.

Between 1775 and 1778 they had lost the majority of their value and were only worth 1/5th to 1/7th their original value. As an example, if we were to think of today’s dollars, each dollar would only be worth around 14 to 20 cents of its original dollar value. Congress tried removing them from circulation and reissuing paper currency again, but they were worthless. Benjamin Franklin noted that the depreciated value had effectively acted as a tax to pay for the Revolutionary War. Quakers, being pacifists, had forbidden the use of the “war notes”. Imagine being paid your daily wage only to find out when you got to the grocery store they wouldn’t take your money or if they did they’d only accept it for pennies on the dollar.

An even newer currency note was then funded by bullion coins loaned from France, then the notes were backed by a personal loan and line of credit, then a further $450,000 loan in the form of French silver coins. The Bank of North America notes were convertible into gold or silver.

The inflation and collapse of the Continentals led to the addition of the silver and gold clause to the Constitution so that the individual states could not issue bills of credit or "make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts".

The United States passed the Coinage Act of 1792 defining the weight of silver in a US Dollar which pegged it to the commonly used Spanish silver dollar. Coins were minted in various sizes including some we use today like Quarters and Dimes, but in silver.

Any person could bring gold or silver bullion and have it coined for free or exchange it immediately for an equivalent value of coin. Trying to continue to do business with foreign coinage would cause both parties to be fined $10 and the foreign coins would be confiscated. That $10 was a lot of money back then as it was half of a $20 gold coin!

United States Treasury Notes were issued during the War of 1812 and then irregularly up through the Civil War as a temporary short term method of dealing with debt. The polite fiction was that they were not money, but they behaved as such. The Treasury Notes would rapidly disappear from circulation once the crisis that caused their creation ended. They were an embarrassment of debt that was paid off as the government was able.

The American Civil War saw a massive printing of not just Treasury Notes, but also Demand Notes in smaller dollar amounts. Demand Notes allowed the bearer to demand an equivalent weight of gold or silver to the amount of Demand Notes turned in. Unlike the Treasury Notes, the Demand Notes were allowed to be directly re-issued.

All of this Debt Printing happily continued until the Trent Affair caused a scare that the Union would not only have to deal with the Civil War, but might also end up in another war with Great Britain. When it was discovered that the Civil War was going to last longer, gold coins started disappearing from circulation. Eventually even the silver and copper coins vanished from circulation as people decided to hold onto the wealth and simply traded the possibly worthless paper money.

After the Civil War the government voted to buy back all of the outstanding paper currency (about $400 million), but a bad harvest, a financial panic in Great Britain, and a contraction of the money supply caused a massive bout of deflation and prices fell. Arguments went back and forth, but Congress eventually voted to allow for the keeping of paper money as a reserve to counteract seasonal demands for currency. The Greenbacks had a revised limit of $300 million and were backed by gold, on demand! This tying the value of paper to gold strengthened the value of the paper currency and eventually their valuation matched the silver coinage and the silver coins reappeared in the market.

Treasury Notes, Demand Notes, and United States Notes were known as “Certificates of Indebtedness”. United States Notes were issued from 1862 to 1971 and after a certain point were considered Silver Certificates - payable to the bearer in silver. United States coinage had been made in gold, silver, nickel, and copper. The silver coinage was 90% silver all the way up through 1963. During World War 2 there was such a large need for nickel and copper that the 5 cent nickel became 35% silver and copper pennies were replaced with steel. Gold was made illegal and the government asked people to turn it in, those that did got paper money which almost immediately lost its value as the gold to paper ratio was changed. There were only a few people that were reported for keeping gold and a few of those were thrown in jail or fined and had all of their gold confiscated.

In 1964 the Treasury stopped redeeming Silver Certificates for silver dollars. Over the next couple of years they instead issued silver “granules” that would equal the amount of silver that would have gone into the coins. All silver redemption ended before the 1970s.

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. - Proverbs 22:7

I’m stopping this article here as there are so many different directions to take this and I want this to be a starting point. Even trying to keep this short I rambled into and through the Civil War. I plan to write more short articles with hopefully some useful tidbits to think over.