Why Gold Coins?

[Observer]

In Mistborn, the economy is heavily based on Allomancy and Feruchemy. Atium and Aluminum are prime examples of this. They are both very powerful when you take allomancy into account, and therefore are worth a lot. So it makes very little sense to me that both the Final Empire and the New World used gold coins. Gold is almost worthless Allomantically, judging by the mental trauma it can cause.

So....why is it used as the base coinage? Why not iron or steel?

[Sir Jerric he/him]

Atium is a incredibly rare and valuable commodity, and too much so to make a good currency.

Other than the god metals, the rest of the metals have the standard Earth-like rarity, distribution, and processing requirements.

Iron and steel suffer significantly from oxidation and are far easier to gather for counterfeiting purposes.

And just why would you want to encourage your citizens to destroy and Allomanticly burn your currency anyway?

[Voidus]

I don't think Aluminum is valuable for Allomantic reasons, it's valuable for the same reason it used to be on earth, it's somewhat difficult to extract from ores (My understanding is that it usually requires electrolysis or extremely high temperatures) I'm sure that in AoL it would be even more valuable than that due to it's protective abilities but generally it would be about the same as on earth. Atium would never have been available to the public in large enough quantities to the public (Also this would have destroyed many plot elements in the book, since Elend and Vin would have definitely had Atium in WoA) So yeah, gold was probably used for the same reason it was on earth, it's rare but not prohibitively so, it's also possible that TLR chose this deliberately as if atium was everywhere, the nobility would have discovered Seers as would the Skaa which would give both a lot more Allomantic power than he wanted.

[Observer]

I'm fairly sure most of Aluminum's value comes from the fact that it can't be allomantically affected.

And I wasn't suggesting Atium as currency.

[Voidus]

But if it was readily available to everyone it wouldn't be valuable at all, that might increase it's value slightly more but I think the large amount comes from it's difficulty to produce. Consider something like Plastic, an excellent insulator and quite valuable as needed to insulate wire, however it is so common that it is practically free in today's society despite it's practical qualities. Then compare that with say a Ferrari, also practical for people today but largely valuable because of it's rarity.

[Riddlesinthedark he/him]

I'm fairly sure most of Aluminum's value comes from the fact that it can't be allomantically affected.

And I wasn't suggesting Atium as currency.

Which would defeat the whole Coinshot description.

[name_here]

Gold is valuable because it's rare and shiny. Sure, it's Allomantically near-worthless (although Feruchemically pretty powerful) but the more useful metals are incredibly common and Scadrial seems to have either vast or regenerating ore deposits for those, since mining towns had enough metal to shield their safehouses from Ruin despite being in operation for at least a thousand years.

[Aeshdan he/him]

Except for atium (which is used as a currency), the Allomantic metals are all common enough to be useless as currency (rather like how iron and steel aren't currencies in the real world even though they have a host of uses). I think gold was used for currency on Scadrial because of its rareness and shininess, just in in the real world. TLR could probably have made something else the basic currency, but he saw no reason to when gold worked so perfectly.

[Riddlesinthedark he/him]

Except for atium (which is used as a currency), the Allomantic metals are all common enough to be useless as currency (rather like how iron and steel aren't currencies in the real world even though they have a host of uses). I think gold was used for currency on Scadrial because of its rareness and shininess, just in in the real world. TLR could probably have made something else the basic currency, but he saw no reason to when gold worked so perfectly.

Atium seems more like an in-trade commodity, since it can also be purchased directly.

Recall also that gold is rather easy to extract (much, much lower tech than even iron). So assuming a similar timeline to Earth where, prior to the electronic age, gold's softness inhibited lack of practical usuage (solid gold anything is incongruous outside of bullion, foil is much more effective), scarcity, and non-tarnishing encouraged its ornamental or coinage uses.

Compare that with silver (solid silver being more doable), as well as copper(strong enough for some knives, strong ornaments, and leading to bronze); chemically very similar, often harvest-able together, and also easily extractable)

TLDR: Gold would emerge quickly in the tech of any society, and its scarcity would probably encourage its use just like Earth. By the time tLR came around it already would have been used.

Edited August 30, 2012 by Voldy

[happyman he/him]

We've discussed this before, and this was the basic consensus. Gold (and silver and copper) would have become currency for much the same reasons they did on Earth. Their Allomancy is weak enough (or non-existent enough) not to threaten TLR, so he would have had no reason to change it. Hence, the status quo would remain such. (And if there's anything TLR loved, it was the status quo, as long as it didn't threaten his power.)

Basically, their Allomantic and Feruchemical properties just weren't powerful enough to change their basic utility.

Atium is a special case, for lots of reasons. It was used as currency, but only for the super-wealthy. Mostly, this was because it was part of TLR's attempt to keep Ruin from regaining power, which caused all kinds of odd effects, given that he had an effective monopoly on it. In short, it doesn't count.

[Millennium]

Strictly speaking, atium's economic use was more like a form of bullion than actual money. You could use it to store huge amounts of value for making large trades, and this was one way the noble Houses used it, but you couldn't walk into a store and pay for something with an atium bead.

Ironically, if you wanted a contemporary real-world example of how something like that might work, gold would be pretty close.

[happyman he/him]

Good points, Millennium. How wealth is actually used is a subtle question, and one that a lot of people really don't understand.

For instance, in the final empire, like in real life, most wealth is not in the form of coinage or bullion in any form. It is in the possession of land, technology, and information, and most trade is conducted in these forms. Coinage of all forms just kind of floats on the surface to make this large pool available to the masses.

[Straff Venture he/him]

If ores replenish as theorised earlier in the thread, there is no reason why the allomantic metals could not work as currency in the Final Empire. On Roshar, we see gemstones which are used practically (in soulcasting and lighting) as well as being currency. I think this would actually be a benefit for the people of the Final Empire, as if in the case of a catastrophe of resources (a global recession), the coins would still be useful in a barter economy because of their allomantic effects.