Gem Currency System

[Arcanist Lupus]

I imagine the largest denominations may be a bit bigger to accommodate the larger stones, as the size of a thumbnail is a bit small.

Not really. A diamond that size would be huge.

[CrazyRioter]

given the fact that these people are currently engaged in fighting over creatures with gemstones inside them the size of somebody's head, I think the normal sizes of gemstones are a moot point.

[Argent]

One thing I love about (well-made) fantasy novels, and I am pretty sure all of Brandon's fall under that category, is the fact that the expensive materials in the world do not have to be silver, gold, and diamonds. Really, the only reason those materials are expensive in our world is because they are rare, and to a certain extent, pretty. Roshar, on the other hand, doesn't seem to suffer from a lack of "precious" metals and gems. In fact, gems seem so common that their value is no longer determined by rarity, but by their purpose in Soulcasting. Gemstones used to Soulcast food (I am not sure which ones those were) are pretty expensive, and I'd imagine so are the ones that are used for Soulcasting stone and wood. So it's a bad habit to think of all those gems' value based on how expensive they would be in our own world.

On a side note, I think see a similar thing in Mistborn. I think it's fairly spoiler-free to say that aluminum is pretty damnation expensive in the era of The Allow of Law, because of its unique Allomantic properties. I think the price of aluminum in the twentieth century Earth is much lower than its equivalent on Sel.

[CrazyRioter]

Aluminum is also hard to smelt, it was quite expensive here until relatively recently until we discovered better methods to smelt it, Scadrial may not have discovered those methods yet, they are still 100 years behind us. So that's another reason aluminum is very expensive on Scadrial as of Alloy of Law.

Edited December 2, 2011 by Ookla the Illogical

[Songstress]

Not really. A diamond that size would be huge.

Yeah, see, after I posted that I thought about it again, and then realized that sounded a bit silly with what real world gemstone sizes... but with all the gemstones scattered about in the series, it just seemed like bigger stones would be more common. I mean, the ones in Jasnah's fabrial, were you imagining them as little chips, or more like 1/2 inch cut stones? When reading, I wasn't thinking of real-world values and sizes for things like emeralds and diamonds and rubies, I was picturing them big

given the fact that these people are currently engaged in fighting over creatures with gemstones inside them the size of somebody's head, I think the normal sizes of gemstones are a moot point.

And then there's that.

[Aeshdan]

3. How much more valuable are infused gems than dun ones? At one point, Shallan says they're just as valuable, and the apothecary Kaladin goes to accepts them (after verifying they're real), but at another point we hear about moneychangers charging fees to infuse spheres.

4. On a related note, how long do spheres keep their charge? Do larger ones hold their charge longer? Do they hold more stormlight?

Dun spheres are equal in value to charged. What moneylenders charge for is the use of their extra-safe infusion baskets (less risk of wind or thieves)

Larger spheres hold more Light, but I think they take the same time to become dun. (more light = more leakage)

[Cheese Ninja]

There are no highstorms during the time of year with the Weepings, are there? So there's a time when there isn't much stormlight available. That would be when the characters are at the most significant risk. I thought larger gems would hold stormlight better. I know that cut gems hold more than uncut, and I figured that how long it lasts is dependent on the total amount.

[11thorderknight]

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the thread, and thanks to Peter for providing clear answers on some questions. To recap:

1 broam = 4 marks = 20 chips

1 emerald (?-mark) = 2 sapphire (skymark) = 5 ruby (firemark) = 10 garnet (bloodmark) = 50 diamond (clearmark)

From what we've seen in WoK, these 5 gems form the bulk of the currency. However, we know the remaining 5 gems are found in spheres as well. From Peter's comment, we know that there are 5 total gem "ranks"; i.e. these other gems have some value equal to those of the more common 5, and not some in-between values.

Any guesses/comments on where these others fit in?

[Windrunner]

Here's the wiki article that I made on spheres. Actually, Shallan states that only nine of the Polestones are used in spheres.(That reference is actually on the wiki page) The only sphere types that are not mentioned in TWoK are heliodor or smokestone. My bet is on smokestone as not being one of the typical spheres. I'm pretty sure the lower four levels have two types of spheres of equivalent value, but emerald broams alone are the most valuable.

So we know that there's another level of value in there somewhere. I'd imagine that firemarks fall into this level because they seem fairly commonly referenced. Then zircon, amethyst,topaz, and heliodor/smokestone would be placed alongside the bottom four, somewhere. I'm not sure there's any way to logically determine where, considering we don't know much about them.

[11thorderknight]

ruby spheres (firemarks) are placed between garnet and sapphire, and are worth 10 diamonds (that's referenced in the books).

as for only 9 gems being used in spheres - the exact quote from chapter 8 is "...was forced to use all 9 colors and all three sizes..."

there are 9 colors, but several of the gems can be described as having the same color, notably garnet and ruby, but also topaz and heliodor. For that matter, we don't know what color zircon is in WoK, but in real life it can be any of a number of colors that could overlap with the other gems. In the chart in WoK, the Radiant symbol that would correspond to zircon is colored a dark blue. So, until we are specifically told otherwise, I maintain that all ten gems are used in currency.

[Windrunner]

Hmm, thanks for that valueable info! However, I still strongly disagree with you on the color thing. Even if they are a similar color, they are not the same.

After all, if we go with your argument on color, we only have 7 different colors in there.

[Cheese Ninja]

I think it's also arguable that Diamond spheres generate white light, which could be considered to be a light of no color/all colors. 9(varied) + diamond(white) =

To get enough light, she was forced to use spheres of all nine colors and all three sizes, so the illumination was patchy and varied.

That's actually what I'm going with until we're explicitly told that there is a gemstone not used as currency.

[king of nowhere]

I wonder why brandon don't insert a table of currency values in the appendix of the books. it's not a plot point to be rafoed and I'm sure we're not the only opnes intersted.

[name_here]

I wonder why brandon don't insert a table of currency values in the appendix of the books. it's not a plot point to be rafoed and I'm sure we're not the only opnes intersted.

Because then people like me would spot and call out any instances where he screwed up the count. By leaving all the values nebulous, mistakes would only be noticed if two scenes gave conflicting valuations.

Also, Roshar does not have a fiat currency system. In the modern era, one hundred pennies are equivalent to one dollar because the issuing authority says so and anyone can go exchange the two at exactly those rates at a bank. Roshar, or for that matter individual nations on Roshar, is not politically unified enough to have an issuing authority. At best each nation, or possibly just major powers, makes spheres at the royal gemcutters and they're used interchangeably, and at worst moneychangers manufacture them without any political oversight. Either way, the numerous and decentralized nations of Roshar simply lack the capacity to enforce any fixed exchange rates between types.

So in any given transaction the ratio of values between different types of spheres is what the people involved decide it is. The average exchange rates would presumably be set by gemstone supply and demand, but would fluctuate with market forces. So if a disproportionate number of gemhearts are emeralds, we could expect the relative value of emerald broams to fall once the warcamps disband and soulcasting food is in less demand. So any table of exchange rates would be temporary and approximate.

This is why dun spheres are worth less, since the value is taking into account the risk that they're counterfeit and can't be charged. If Roshar were as unified as Scadrial, the government would probably tell people to knock that off and accept dun spheres at the same value as charged spheres.

[Cheese Ninja]

I wouldn't be surprised if the values of emeralds change in the near future, but he was consistent throughout WoK about currency exchanges any time that they showed up. A gemheart would mostly likely be kept as whole as possible after being cut for facets, since larger gems hold more Stormlight and are less likely to crack from usage. The shavings from shaping it into a gem are probably larger than the gems in most broams as well.

I think the main reason for their not being an appendix on currency is the same as the reason there wasn't an appendix on the calender, or the reduced gravity of Roshar. It's just not appendix material. It also gives us a small tidbit to speculate on that he can confirm or deny without affecting the overall story. What we do see in the appendices are the Ars Arcanum, which explain details of Cosmere magic systems.

[Windrunner]

Eh, I'm inclined to disagree here. Everything you guys say makes perfect sense, but the math of the spheres works out too perfect for it to be simple coincidence. No fractional sphere values, nice round numbers. I don't know how it would work, but it seems like some pretty set values to me.

[name_here]

I wouldn't be surprised if the values of emeralds change in the near future, but he was consistent throughout WoK about currency exchanges any time that they showed up. A gemheart would mostly likely be kept as whole as possible after being cut for facets, since larger gems hold more Stormlight and are less likely to crack from usage. The shavings from shaping it into a gem are probably larger than the gems in most broams as well.

It's stated somewhere emeralds are the most valuable because of their use in soulcasting. Presumably most emerald gets used by soulcasters instead of turned into spheres. The warcamps are keeping that true at the moment, because they lack the capacity to effectively supply such a large force for an extended period of time so far from their agricultural base without soulcasting, but Dalinar notes that isn't a permanent situation. The question of what types of gems are found as gemhearts has been raised, but I suspect they're not equally distributed or the impact would already have been felt in ruby and diamond(fire and crystal soulcasting) values.

Eh, I'm inclined to disagree here. Everything you guys say makes perfect sense, but the math of the spheres works out too perfect for it to be simple coincidence. No fractional sphere values, nice round numbers. I don't know how it would work, but it seems like some pretty set values to me.

Bear in mind that most of our detailed numbers involve small values, and unlike historical metal currencies there is no way to split a sphere. Also, chip-mark-broam exchange rates would be fixed, because the ratio of gem size remains constant. That being said, in the areas we see there is a strong social tendency to make things multiples of five or ten.

Edited November 29, 2012 by name_here

[Windrunner]

But wasn't the whole point of the argument that social tendency doesn't matter because the value of these gems should be fluctuating depending on what new spheres are made? I don't know much about economics, so I could be missing a step here.

[name_here]

Social tendency only goes so far. If values fluctuate enough they'd move to another multiple of five. They might also break away from strict multiples of five when the spheres are very large, but we don't see much of Roshar high finance in detail.

[Aethling]

Base five and ten are generally easily acceptable for humans because they have a ready made counting system biologically. Ten fingers and toes makes it easy to count and do the math for multiples of five or ten. Base three or four just don't have the natural affinity.

I have never lived in England under the older currency system, but wasn't it fairly skewed with multiples of 8 and 16ths and such? They eventually standardized it to make it easier for transactions..

[FlashWrogan]

I tend to think that we wouldn't see any steady inflation of spheres on Roshar even with the discovery of gemhearts. What we want to consider is that values are assigned currencies in our world are determined either by rarity (gold, gems) or arbitrarily (cash). On Roshar, spheres are a source for soulcasting, and therefore can be used to make just about anything. This makes it a much more valuable currency than any we have seen.

[11thorderknight]

As pointed out, the precise, even, and constant ratios between gem types and sizes implies that the Roshar currency is, in fact, somewhat arbitrary, i.e. fiat currency, like the modern dollar. However, that begs the question - how does Soulcasting utility play into the value of gems?

1. I can see why emeralds, which can be used to make food, would be valuable. But then, why are sapphires 2nd most valuable? They make air!

2. The way that Soulcasting fabrials are described, they seem to use stormlight from the large focus stones set in the actual fabrial. In that case, NO spheres should have any utility in Soulcasting!

3. Soulcasters are currently so limited and rare, that regardless of how rare/common various gems are, they should never be the limiting factor in Soulcasting. In Alethkar for instance, only the king has access to Soulcasters, and the other highprinces have to go to him. The Soulcasters are literally priceless, meaning that if you had one, it really wouldn't matter what color gem you needed....it wouldn't be a consideration once you had the Soulcaster itself.

[Vortaan]

Is it possible the tenth stone serves the purpose that bullion does, a reserve that marks the prices of the other gems? If so, it's likely rarer that emeralds, and wouldn't be mentioned since it wouldn't really enter circulation.

[Aethling]

Don't forget the gems are also used to power shardplate. It seems to take lots of large ones just for that.

Even with the gemhearts, the gems are still fairly rare which has always been a reason for their value. I can't remember anything specific, but I imagine they are still used as jewelery. That is another reason they are valuable in out modern world.

There may be a bit of built-in anti-inflationary tendency just since the army is so far away from the rest of the realm. I doubt that very much of the gemheart wealth has actually made it back from the battlegrounds yet.

Besides, I have never read where Sanderson was a master economist. I really doubt he has bothered to workout the macro and micro economic aspects of the gem-base monetary system. Sometime you just have to go with the story and not try to nano-analyze stuff. Even the best economic minds today can't agree on even some if the simplest economic policies.

[name_here]

Actually, at one point Dalinar discusses the long-term inflationary possibilities of gemhearts. At the moment the warcamps definitely are countering inflation by using up the recovered gemhearts.

There are numerous reasons for the value of gems, but it's a pretty basic and generally agreed upon principle of economics that the value of something goes down when you have more of it. For instance, in the modern world steel is useful, but it's also cheap because there is just so much of it. Meanwhile, diamonds are expensive because a shadowy international cartel is artificially restricting the number of gem-quality diamonds for sale.

1. I can see why emeralds, which can be used to make food, would be valuable. But then, why are sapphires 2nd most valuable? They make air!

2. The way that Soulcasting fabrials are described, they seem to use stormlight from the large focus stones set in the actual fabrial. In that case, NO spheres should have any utility in Soulcasting!

3. Soulcasters are currently so limited and rare, that regardless of how rare/common various gems are, they should never be the limiting factor in Soulcasting. In Alethkar for instance, only the king has access to Soulcasters, and the other highprinces have to go to him. The Soulcasters are literally priceless, meaning that if you had one, it really wouldn't matter what color gem you needed....it wouldn't be a consideration once you had the Soulcaster itself.

1. They're probably the best for demolition or cutting like Jasnah removing that rock.

2. Gems being used in soulcasters are not cut into sphere-sized gems.

3. Right, but soulcasting shatters gems on a fairly regular basis, so they'll still suck down the overall supply. Plus, people with soulcasters won't buy gems for more than the value of what they'd make with them; what would be the point?