Whose mug is on 4th Era gold coins? I had originally assumed that the coin's portrait would change with whoever was emperor like on Roman coins, but everyone still calls them "septims" despite the Medes having been on the throne for the past hundred plus years. Has septim just become the generic term that everybody uses despite the portrait, or are all coins still printed with a Septim's face no matter who's actually on the throne (like how all U.S. quarters have George Washington on them)? Tiber Septim would seem the most likely candidate if it's the latter.

Same as always, ol' Tiber Septim. Keep in mind that the Medes are something of a extension to the Septim dynasty, and managed to catch the empire before it completely imploded.

Still got Tiber's mug on 'em, the conceit of the Fourth Empire being that it's actually the one before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigris THE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septum.

IN MAGNISSIMUS IMPERATOR TALOS FIDEMUS ET FIDESTUS SUMUS - From a septim minted in 4E123

EDIT: My latin is really, really bad.

http://images.wikia.com/elderscrolls/images/a/aa/Septim.jpg

E PLURIBUS STOMPYROBOTRAMPAGE - on the reverse.

Automata dwemeri populi plebianis saepe noncogitantur

At least I think.

And assuming my Latin isn't ridiculously broken.

How much is a septim worth?

A septim.

I have one of those coins. I got it in my Special Edition Oblivion. I also don't think their supposed to be "GP" because if they were made of gold... well you wouldnt buy bread with em.

Yes, but if converted to USD, how much do you think it would be worth? approximately?

It's weight in gold.

Aha, I was looking for a good, clear pic of the coin.

Makes sense that they'd still have Tiber on them. Just wasn't sure how that worked. I bow to the lore-gods once more.


Semper ubi sub ubi!

This is probably really inaccurate, but at least a shot at it.
A bread is about 2USD in the US, and about 3 septims in The Empire. 1 USD = 1,5 Septims? It becomes more accurate the more wares you compare. But this got me thinking: Magical sword made of the blood of a god that steals you sword for 5,000 USD? I have a strange feeling the in-game monetary system is somewhat simplified... That also makes the USD-Septim comparison hard. (And keep in mind that most people in Tamriel are not poor, but not rich either.

Edit: The sword steals your soul, not sword...

There's no need to bother with all that. Septims are literally made of gold, so the coins will always be worth their weight in gold.

A single septim looks like it's a bit bigger than a US half dollar, which is about 11 grams and mostly made of copper. IIRC, gold is more dense than copper, so I'm going to guess a septim is maybe between 15 and 20 grams (my math skills are horrible). So whatever the average going rate is in the US for 17-ish grams of gold is probably how much a septim would be worth in US dollars.

EDIT: That's assuming septims are stamped in pure gold and not a gold-plated composition of lesser metal.

They can't be made of gold, they don't weigh anything...

Unless they were minted in the Illiac Bay region around the time of the Warp in the West. ;P

So you'd give 3 gold coins for a load of bread? Smart.

Depends on the size of the load.

You have also have to remember, gold does absolutely nothing by itself. You can't eat it, and in medieval societies, there were no real machines that made any use of it. So why do people want gold? Old world economists thought that everything must have an inherent value, and that a value or price of something should be related to how useful it was. Lumber, then should be more valuable than gold, and they couldn't explain why it wasn't. So what's the deal then? If you were to write down a list of all the things you value, there would certainly be things you would value more than others yes? If you compared it to lists other people have made, you'd find that you probably don't value things the exact same as someone else due to each person's individuality. I love pistachio ice cream for example, even more than chocolate. I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that you probably like chocolate more than pistachio, because pistachio is not a very popular flavor. If you have pistachio and I have chocolate, we would therefore trade, which is the whole basis of economics: human values, which are the basis of supply and demand. Hence why....


...this would never work. A market in a fantasy game is going to have different supplies of things (bread may be more in abundance for example) and different demands based on human values in order for this to work. You would be better figuring out how much WE (in the real world) would trade for some of these items, and figure out the exchange rates from there. A soul stealing sword for example, is not in high quantity in our world for example. However, it's possible we have more food items and perhaps other things such as cars, etc., that the denizens of Tamriel would love to get their hands out. I would start there and kind of try and guess what the exchange may end up being from that sort of thing.

Which leads me to mediums of exchange. If a chicken farmer mainly has chickens, then he is going to have to find someone who wants chickens to get what he wants, like say....gasoline. You can see where that would be difficult. This is why societies as a whole start to use things that many people value and want or everyone generally agrees is valuable as a medium of exchange. The native americans used beads, and Romans originally used cattle, hence their word for money, pecunia, being similar to their word for cattle pecu. Everyone agrees gold is valuable, and knows that someone else will accept it somewhere.

So what exactly is the problem with spending 3 septims on a loaf of bread? Hm?

It's possible that gold is more abundant/accessible in Tamriel than in Europe/Asia, so that septims are correspondingly lower in value. Or that septims used to be made of gold and aren't anymore.

On a related note -- have we encountered any form of currency besides the septim? I can't think of any smaller/larger coins, and no foreign coins either (except for the Dwemer coins in Morrowind. And Morrowind drakes I suppose, except I think "drake" is just regional slang for "septim".) I feel like this might support DarthRavanger's idea that everything is just worth its weight in gold -- so even weird old money out of an Ayleid ruin is still perfectly usable. Septims are a unit of weight as well as currency

edit: tyop

Obviously, the Imperial mint also produces smaller denominations, such as The Remani (.50 drakesworth), The Mor (.25 drakesworth), The Moth (.05 drakesworth) and The Esh (.01 drakesworth).

[/speculation]

Judging from ingame prices, I'd say larger denominations would be necessary, not smaller ones.