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[sonerohi]

Gold works because there is a 2 in the matrix.

[HideousBeing]

Everything is valuable because we think it is valuable. Circular logic wins out.

Gold is mostly just shiny and rare.

[Leafsnail]

Gold's real "value" doesn't lie in being useless, but in being unchanging.  Gold will never rust or corrode... a lump of gold in your safe will pretty much always be a lump of gold.

I think you are wrong. (In particular, I don't think that gold is adscribed value due to it's stability).

Well, if it rusted or corroded, or if it were easy to get lots more, it'd make a crap overall currency, right?

[ChairmanPoo]

I think the latter plays a far bigger role than the former, assuming those are significant at all in the matter.

[Leafsnail]

You wouldn't buy gold if it corroded or rusted or otherwise became valueless somehow.

You wouldn't buy gold if it were easy to obtain more and lower the value.

This is pretty much how precious metals work (that and "Ooh, shiny!").

[ChairmanPoo]

Again, I don't think that is the major factor. Other, more perishable forms of currency, have been used, and indeed are being used. Besides, it's questionable how significant the perishability is, depending on the context.

[DJ]

Hammurabi's laws defined grain as a legal tender, and refusing to accept it as payment while accepting coins carried a hefty fine.

[Nikov]

Yes, that's called fiat currency. The fact they had to punish people to enforce it is proof enough that people, even then, preferred coinage. I'm sure those pacific islander people would have preferred to trade in little pretty metal disks with their chief's face stamped on them instead of massive quarter, half, and full ton stone disks. Whiskey has also been used as a currency, as well as furs, glass beads and buck skins (which a good one was worth a dollar even at trade posts, hence a 'buck'). The problem with all of these is of course bulk, weight, inflation, ease of counterfeit and destruction. Coins solve all these problems.

Personally I'd rather we all trade in gold, silver, or copper coins. I'm old fashioned like that. In fact, I refuse to accept the new pennies because the old pennies are worth two cents melt, while the new pennies are worthless zinc. Somehow I doubt I'll get imprisoned (or will insist on it to the point I do get imprisoned).

[DJ]

I'd love to see counterfeit grain.

[Nikov]

Easy. Just mix small pebbles in. They settle to the bottom of the stack and both take up space and add weight. Or the grain could be moldy, and you just threw some fresh stuff over the top to pass a precursory inspection. Really all sorts of ways to cheat there, but you need tools, skill and time to fake a gold coin. Not to mention gold.

[Soadreqm]

Personally I'd rather we all trade in gold, silver, or copper coins. I'm old fashioned like that. In fact, I refuse to accept the new pennies because the old pennies are worth two cents melt, while the new pennies are worthless zinc. Somehow I doubt I'll get imprisoned (or will insist on it to the point I do get imprisoned).

The good old precious metal coins certainly had their charm, but you can't deny that paper money and its successors are much more convenient when dealing with long distance transfers and large amounts of money. Also, some part of me wants to scream at the thought of the mint running at a loss. The theoretical possibility that you could make so much money that you couldn't afford to make any more money. And even more ridiculously, the mint workers having to stay overtime to make enough money to pay their own salaries, and then having to make even more money to pay for that overtime. The various logic bombs are endless.

And good point with gold being difficult to counterfeit. While there are metals heavier than it, they're usually even rarer than gold. When you get a gold coin and measure its density to be equal to that of gold, you can be sure that it's either gold or some alloy of platinum or something. Well, these days we have depleted uranium, but that's a fairly new development.

Heh, didn't some country sink its entire stock of platinum into the ocean when they were afraid someone would use it for counterfeiting? I remember reading something like that once.

[cowofdoom78963]

Is there a pink metal? Becuase I would use that as currency.

[Soadreqm]

Copper is pinkish before it starts corroding, but corrodes way too fast to be useful as a pink metal. Unless you glazed it or something.

You can alloy it with gold to get rose gold, which is hopefully more chemically stable. You can also control the ratio to get exactly the shade of pink you want between mostly-reddish copper and yellow gold. It's implemented in DF, by the way. I'm kind of surprised you didn't know. You can go mint rose gold coins right now and watch as your entire economy collapses as the dwarves stop doing productive work and start hauling coins around.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Coins: My anti-fps.

[Grakelin]

I like to imagine it works that way in real life and that we'd all be in spaceships colonizing the stars or even transcending into Gods by now if we hadn't pissed off the Creator by spreading coins and shit everywhere