Money in the Rithmatist

[AuthenticPepperJack]

In the scene where Melody buys Joel some ice cream, we get a few tidbits on how much the dollar(Assuming that cents mean more or less what they do in The US.) is worth in the United Isles. 

Quote

“Well, it is June,” she said. “Still, it’s not that bad. I doubt you’ll be able
to find a scoop for less than seven cents anywhere on the island, and five is
the cheapest I’ve seen in winter.”
Joel blinked. Were things really that expensive? 

“How much do you have?” she asked.
Joel reached in his pocket and pulled out a single silver penny. It was as
wide as his thumb, and thin, stamped with the seal of New Britannia. His
mother made him carry it with him, should he need to pay cab fare or buy a
ticket on the springrail.
“One penny,” Melody said flatly.
Joel nodded.
“That’s all the allowance you get a week?”
“A week?” he asked. “Melody, my mother gave me this for my birthday
last year.”

Currently, the national American average for one scoop is about $5.35, and a quick google search didn't give much, but I found some mentions of a nickel per scoop back in the 1900's. I don't know how much time Brandon put into the monetary value part of the system, but I'm guessing he just used whatever it was for the 20th century. Joel also says that a penny is enough cab fare or a springrail ticket(which I'm also assuming to be about the same as a railroad ticket), which is entirely identical to its real-world counterpart, but train tickets ranged from 2-3 cents per mile up to tens of dollars, which matches. According to https://www.nist.gov/nist-museum/fare-fair-taximeter-testing-1920s-and-today#:~:text=Although horse-drawn for-hire,new U.S. industry was born., A cab fare would be about a 50 cents per mile, compared to the penny in world, but maybe they charge less for the short rides Joel is most likely to take

Anyway, I didn't see any existing discussions on this, and I was wondering if there was a deeper meaning, or if I'm looking to deep into this.

Edited December 14, 2025 by AuthenticPepperJack

[Treamayne]

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11 hours ago, AuthenticPepperJack said:

Anyway, I didn't see any existing discussions on this, and I was wondering if there was a deeper meaning, or if I'm looking to deep into this.

Well, we also have to consider how being an Archepelago would affect the economics of it. It's possible that things like "taxi" have an On-Island and Inter-Island rates. IRL, we had Hackney Carraiges and Hansom Cabs as late as 1605 and 1834 (respectively) - Wikipedia:

Quote

Horse-drawn for-hire hackney carriage services began operating in both Paris and London in the early 17th century. The first documented public hackney coach service for hire was in London in 1605. In 1625 carriages were made available for hire from innkeepers in London and the first taxi rank appeared on the Strand outside the Maypole Inn in 1636. In 1635 the Hackney Carriage Act was passed by Parliament to legalise horse-drawn carriages for hire.

<snip>

The hansom cab was designed and patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York as a substantial improvement on the old hackney carriages. These two-wheel vehicles were fast, light enough to be pulled by a single horse (making the journey cheaper than travelling in a larger four-wheel coach) were agile enough to steer around horse-drawn vehicles in the notorious traffic jams of nineteenth-century London and had a low centre of gravity for safe cornering.

We only have one WoB on the Rithmatist value of the Dollar, which was valued much higher than IRL dollars, due to the clockworks in its design (and which would change the economics of sub-dollar valuation - WoB:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner

I was wondering about the economics of the Rithmatist. Obviously, the price levels are without a century of inflation. The cost of making those dollar coins, even in terms of their economics, it seems like it would cost more than a dollar to make a dollar coin.

Brandon Sanderson

We spend more to make some of our money, not dollars. The argument I make on that one is that a dollar built by them is added value. That is my feel on it. Producing it might take more money than it is worth, but by the time it’s done, it is worth that much more money. At least in my opinion.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 18, 2017)

 

Hope that helps