(TFT) Electrum info

["Jay Carlisle" <confused3141@hotmail.com>]

There was a bit about a month ago on diffrent bimetalic, trimetalic, etc. 
monatary systems and Electrum was brought up. Some folks had problems with 
it because it was difficult to determine the value of the alloy. I got a bit 
curious as to why it would have made it into something like D&D in the first 
place and a bit of research came up with the following;


The ancient kingdom of Lydia in Aisa Minor on the Aegean Sea minted the 
first coins in it's capital of Sardis. The coins were small oval-shaped bits 
of metal made of electrum. Before this metals were traded in chunks that had 
to be weighed by money dealers in the market place to determine their value. 
Later on these chunks were shaped into bars of a given weight that was 
stamped with a die to mark it. These dies were wedged shaped pieces of very 
hard metal and were called coins. The last king of Lydia was named Croesus 
and was known for his great wealth. He is credited with minting the first 
pure gold coins and is the source of the saying "as rich as Croesus". 
Typicaly coins were valued by taking a given weight of metal and breaking it 
into parts (usually 60) each part then being struck as a coin. The first 
"inflation" occured when a base metal was added to the metal being broken 
into parts for minting.

"from Coins and Coin Collecting, golden press"


Jay
".... but is it Chiba?"

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