Those two things I mentioned are the only method I actively try and obtain septims from(and feel the most rewarding), which means it takes me a long long time to get a high total in septims. I've already done the whole speech thing, amassing ridiculous amounts of septims from buying/selling.

In the Real World we have things like the Consumer Price Index. Basically, buying a shopping cart full of groceries will cost how much? The total cost is compared month by month, year by year. By this kind of measurement we can conclude that gold in Tamriel is worth about the same as zinc is in the Real World. One gold piece for part of a loaf of bread? For the equivalent transaction in the Medieval era, an entire loaf would have cost at most 1/4 of a penny (farthing). Then compare the cost of a bread loaf portion to the cost of any weapon or piece of armor. Would a piece heavy armor actually cost no more than the cost of a few hundred bread pieces?

The main reason everything is measured in gold coins is because practically everyone equates "gold" = "money". And breaking currency down into more than one denomination puts a heavier strain on the program's memory requirements. To be realistic, a currency-based Economy requires at least 10-12 denominations. Small coinage to buy trivial things like a slice of bread and large-value currency to buy expensive things without being required to carry a ton of coins just to buy a suit of armor. Larger transactions like buying a castle would be done with something like Letters of Credit wherein some outfit like the Hanseatic League or Fuggers simply transfer funds from this person's account here to that person's account there.

maybe this

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html

As sporked as it is, the currency situation is the least of Skyrim's problems for me. I don't use any "realism" mods. I get plenty of "realism" in........

Exactly - there's no upside to investing the time, expense, and complexity required to implement a realistic economic system in Skyrim. I bet players would complain that it's too complicated and confusing so they just ignore it.

Can you imagine realistic supply/demand dynamics in light of your PC getting the transmute spell, turning a pile of ore into gold and quickly smithing 100 gold rings? You'd collapse the economy under massive inflationary pressure.

I'd rather see regional food options at the Inns of the various cities across Skyrim - you know, for more of a travel-vibe.

Something I remember from Econ 101 and the discussion about currency: "If diamonds were as common as pebbles on the beach, that's how much diamonds would be worth." Remind yourself of that when next you gloat over the fact that you've amassed over a million gold in the game. (Well, not you personally, but anyone so inclined to gloat over such a thing.)

My body count is somewhere around 2000 in total including both living and undead, DB is the most successful adventurer of all times, a good adventurer cleans out a bandit lair and becomes wealthy, a great adventurer kills a dragon and becomes filthy rich, they got nothing on me, killed a dragon? Pfff, i killed 80 of them, it's not that gold is as common as sand in Tamriel, it's just that you hold about 95% of all currency ever minted in Tamriel.

Not really. Every 24 hours (or is it longer than that?) every merchant gets a new shipment of gold for us players to acquire through selling. It's coming from somewhere (not us)

Yeah well, in middle ages merchants were some of the wealthiest individuals around, he sells all you sell him at a profit.

1) In comparison to the Real World, how much gold do you think is in circulation in Tamriel? Keeping in mind that the ONLY coin in circulation is made of gold. Also keep in mind that Tamriel is only just ONE continent which is at most just 1/4 of the planet's landmass. In TRW, there are, on average, 1,522.21 kg produced from mining. That's 3,110.42 pounds, or a little over just 1 1/2 tons produced in the entire world. Per year. From that amount there is not only coins created, but also jewelry, ornamentation for lavish buildings, crowns and the like, etc. Now even if ALL of that gold went into currency, how many could be produced? Well, how much would the average gold coin (septim) weigh? Well, figure that from one gold ingot you can make TWO gold rings, each worth 75 septims, so at most a septim of gold = 1/150th of an ingot. (No value assigned to jewelry-making craftsmanship.) How much does a gold ring weigh? The average man's plain wedding band is @ 10 grams. If that 10 grams = 75 septims, each coin would weigh only .0133333_ grams. There are @453.6 grams to the pound. [Times 2 to get the weight of a gold ingot = 20 grams. Those are some really small, teenie, tiny, minuscule ingots there.] 3,110.42 pounds at 453.6 grams per pound = 14,108,865.5 grams. Divide that by .01333333 and you get 105,816,752.9 coins from the total planetary production of gold. (Nothing diverted from coin production.)

Now, as Dragonborn gathering wealth at every opportunity, amassing 2 million septims in just currency in just ONE year is entirely doable. Or approximately 2% of the entire planet's coin production, by just ONE person. Now add the value of all the weapons, armor, artifacts, real estate, etc., et al, and that can easily make the value of the DB's annual income to be @10% of the planet's entire gold production.

Now factor in the incomes and wealth generation of the entire population of Tamriel to get a rough idea of just how many coins will be needed to keep the continental Economy clicking away. How much does a Jarl make per year? How much for the Emperor? How much do you think Erikur http://uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Erikur makes each year? All the merchants of not just Skyrim, but also all of Tamriel's provinces as well.

That's A LOT of coins needed to keep the Economy going. How many might that be? A billion? Not enough by far. A trillion? Probably still not enough. Whatever comes after trillions, getting closer. Per year. (LOTS of shrinkage as quite a bit gets put away in hoards, Treasuries, and tombs.)

Not enough gold enough in a planet to supply the needs of an Economy like Tamriel's.

2) You are talking about Supply-side Economics: "If you make it, someone, somewhere WILL buy it." That theory holds up about as well as "Trickle Down Economics". That is having only a laughable relationship to Reality.

Right, but do you really want to work 20 years game time to buy a small house, i would say that player is boosted by devs to make a game playable, tough most of this problem would have been solved if they simply introduced lower denominations like silver and copper coins, if it was a 100-1 ratio what is presently 1 000 000 gold would be just 10 gold coins, most players would only get a hold of a handful of gold coins, but of course it would be far less satisfactory to find a big pile of copper then to find a big pile of gold, it's just that insane riches (like smaug's horde from Hobbit) have been a staple of fantasy for so long players now expect it, even though there very presence invalidates there worth.

Obviously not. And as it has been mentioned, the DB is at least equivalent to the highest-paid celebrity in the world today. Which, compared to the national/world Economy would be about what fraction?.

Going all the way back to D&D, cash rewards to player characters has been deliberately inflated, just so the player can feel "I'm winning!" Contrast to Reality where in the equivalent period, Medieval/Middle Ages, a princely (or more like run-of-the-mill noble) annual income would have been <100 gold sovereigns (@8 grams each). A full set of heavy plate armour would go for @10 gold coins (florins, ducats, whatever) [AND have taken >1 year to create]. But to modern sensibilities, those numbers are waaaayyyyy too small. There would have also been a broad spectrum of denominations to accommodate tiny transaction (e.g. loaf of bread): farthing, ha'-penny, penny, tuppence, thruppence, sixpence, shilling (bob), florin (2 shilling), half-crown (2 shillings, 6 pence), crown (5 shillings), and pound (20 shillings). the average peasant was lucky to see 20 shillings (1 pound) in an entire year. (That much would make him seem well-to-door by his peers.)

An interesting game that almost got currency right was Darklands, which broke money down into pfennigs (pennies), groschen (12 pf), and florins (20 gr or 240 pf). However, most gamers have been "decimalized" and their brains have fixated on 10-to-1 ratios. Even D&D's money system -- 1 gold = 10 silver = 50 copper = 2 electrum = 1/5 platinum -- proved to be VERY unpopular because "It's too complicated!" With progressive editions kept changing the formula until by the time AD&D games started to appear as video games, EVERYTHING was measured in just gold coins. And while originally coins had weight, eventually they became weightless.

So, when it comes right down to it, the reason we have sooooooo many septims in circulation it is because that's what the majority of players wanted.