Spheres to Dollars

[Trusk'our]

If you were to exchange American dollars for Rosharan Spheres, how would they compair value wise?

[Frustration]

One clearmark is about a dollar

Spoiler

Questioner

I asked this of Pat. Money system wise, a standard, like, equivalent to U.S. dollars kind of thing. Is a clear mark? I usually think of a clear mark as a dollar.

Brandon Sanderson

If you email through my website, Peter keeps all of this. I actually, these days, just write "worth about this much" in dollars and he figures out a monetary for it, because this just takes, y'know, I have to reach into the wiki and be like "Alright, how much is this worth again? How much is this?" The commodities are of different values an so he just factors it all out. I remember giving him instructions once, that sounds about right.

Questioner

I figured as much, for slaves to...

Brandon Sanderson

We're like, what does a slave make... it's, yeah.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/75/#e4380

 

 

 

 

 

[Quantus]

Im not sure they would, just because there is so much different scaling of social culture.  

The smallest denomination is a diamond chip.  The largest is an Emerald Broam, which is worth 1000 Diamond chips. But the low end is literally the smallest anything a person can buy (at least with actual spheres), while 1000 of those is a significant sum by the scales of the ruling cast and can apparently support an entire prince's warcamp for at least some amount of time.  

I suppose that's also just the Pre-Desolation value of them on the Shattered Plains, while the local inflation in other parts of roshar would probably skew them pretty far.  

[Immortal Platypus]

but, if we bring rosharan currency to Earth, the crystals are worth a lot so they would buy a lot of stuff.

[Returned]

1 hour ago, ImportantQuestions said:

but, if we bring rosharan currency to Earth, the crystals are worth a lot so they would buy a lot of stuff.

Gemstones are commodities on Earth, and so have as much value as people are willing to pay for them in situations where they want to make that trade. I doubt your local grocery store would take a colorful gem-looking fragment inside a glass sphere in exchange for food, but a jeweler might buy or barter for one from you.

On Roshar, spheres are currency (a universally accepted medium of exchange among human settlements) but also have intrinsic value due to how they can be used-- they hold Stormlight, so they can light darkness, fuel Soulcasters, and power Surgebinding abilities. A Rosharan would only want an American paper dollar (or any other dollar) if they were going to spend it on Earth, unless a Rosharan collecter wanted one as a weird object to collect or something.

"How much is a broam-sized, well-cut emerald worth in dollars of some particular country" is a different question from what I interpreted the question to be asking. The question (as I interpreted it) is more about currency exchange, like U.S. dollars to British pounds or Japanese Yen, and answering that means looking at how much you can buy with one versus the other in either economy. That's what I'm not sure we can sensibly do, because what can be purchased (and how it's valued by people) is so radically different between Earth and Roshar.

[Immortal Platypus]

3 hours ago, Returned said:

"How much is a broam-sized, well-cut emerald worth in dollars of some particular country" is a different question from what I interpreted the question to be asking. The question (as I interpreted it) is more about currency exchange, like U.S. dollars to British pounds or Japanese Yen

yeah, I can see that now, I just interpreted it differently.

 

3 hours ago, Returned said:

I'm not sure we can sensibly do

I doubt we can. I'd say it's impossible but eventually Brandon might come out with some sort of exchange rates or something.

[Returned]

I'm not sure the two economies compare in ways that would let us come up with an answer. No amount of spheres would let you buy an electronic computer on Roshar, while no number of dollars would allow someone in the U.S. to buy magical, immediate healing or soulcasting services. From the few directly comparable examples we get (like one diamond chip buying a loaf of bread) we might say that a diamond chip is worth ~$3-4, but that's not really enough to guess at an overall exchange rate.

[AonDoor]

1 hour ago, Returned said:

Gemstones are commodities on Earth, and so have as much value as people are willing to pay for them in situations where they want to make that trade.

So, just sell spheres at high prices to superfans of Brandon. This gives me ideas! Stick some sort of phosphorescent material in the shape of a cut gem inside a glass sphere, and voila! You've got a product that some people might buy!

[AonDoor]

Someone went through and downvoted all these answers.

[Immortal Platypus]

3 hours ago, AonDoor said:

Someone went through and downvoted all these answers.

Yep. Gotta love that person. *rolls eyes*