The New Gate - Vol. 1 Ch. 4

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That currency makes no sense. Why would they use currency that's worth nothing? In fact it seems like the author noticed the same thing and suddenly introduced the traditional fantasy variants. In ye olde times, money was worth the metal it was made of. Thus, a coin was only a convenient way of seeing how much the piece of metal was worth. In fact if some country still based its money's worth on gold reserves, it would still be the same, only via the proxy of money in circulation. However, if the money itself is silver or gold, then it's obviously tied to nothing but its own concrete worth. What the heck is that "Jewel" supposed to be, then? I can't really follow the money scheme in this work.
 
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@Kaarme You have a point, but let me ask you this: who decides a currency's worth? The three most common metals used in coinage back in the day were gold, silver, and copper; none of those have any intrinsic value in and of themselves. Well, copper kinda does for the fact that it can be alloyed with tin to form bronze, but I digress. A long time ago, people came across gold and silver, decided they were pretty and thus valuable, which is pretty much the textbook definition of arbitrary; they were really only valuable because they were shiny and (to a pre-modern society, at least) worthless, a visual representation of "look, I have enough wealth that I can afford to buy things that serve no purpose whatsoever". Metal coinage just became a convenient way to represent wealth, since it's easier to carry around than the previous forms of money, which were often wrought in the shapes of tools like knives or spears.

If it really bugs you, though, think of it this way: the Geyl is like a Roman aureus here in the real world, while the Jewel is more akin to a penny, dime, quarter, and gold eagle in the US; sure, the aureii are technically worth the same as the gold eagle by metal content, but from a historical point of view, they would be worth far, far more. Assuming you could find the genuine article for sale, it probably wouldn't be that strange to see it priced at about 8,000$US (for comparison, the gold eagle is worth about 1,200$US by metal content despite its 50$ face value). They're just too valuable to spend in all but the most absurd circumstances.
 
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Back in history the rich people didn't have that many options to invest their wealth into. So, they might as well spend it in gold and silver stuff. They, along with copper, also had their uses in decoration, art, and architecture. There's still demand today for the precious metals precisely because they are rare. Of course these days they have the additional uses in various fields of industry and research, which in fact have created demand for more precious metals (and other elements) the old folks had no idea of (such as palladium). Platinum is often seen as the highest currency in fantasy, but I don't think it served much role in reality before the modern times.

Nothing else in the currencies of this story bothers me but the ambiguous Jewel. My guess is its worthlessness is there simply because the Japanese Yen is also pretty worthless, so the author thinks the primary audience doesn't understand a currency unless you need a hundred of it to buy a lollipop. However, like I noted earlier, the author himself got bored of it quickly and instead decided to use the traditional precious metal based coins. My gut feeling is, though, that the author hasn't really paid overly much attention to how much stuff costs in the story and if it makes sense.
 
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I like how the author basically what accounts for inflation. I'm so tired of isekai authors making their currency basically isekai yen.
 
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oh god the girl is really cute, did they skip her in the anime? i dont remember mc talking to her in the anime
 
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Dude is going to drop the greatest shit in his life if he held it back for a year
 

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