As I write this it is skin-meltingly hot out… but Flairé was unusually talkative today and gave me the outline of the history of the kalmaeirin currency system(s), so I thought I should get it down before I forgot it or it got garbled by something. <_<  >_>

This does not include a discussion of the credit system they used, or the age jewel gifting traditions that existed in some parts of the kingdoms, or of the economic system itself. This is only a summary of how they started using currency.

As soon as the kalmaei were ‘civilized’ enough to start producing ‘goods’, they needed a way to exchange them. At first this was done by barter (“I’ll give you baked goods for three weeks if you give me those boots…”). This was pretty obviously impractical; they made do for a while with extremely complicated agreements (“I want some of your fish, but you don’t need my fishhooks, but that guy over there does, and he’ll give you a couple of oars, which you do want…” etc.) but in the end they decided something had to change.

They valued all metals and gems, but they also thought of them as simply raw materials for jewelry, statues, and other decoration. Hence, although perhaps they traded small nuggets of metal, it was not widespread or common. It was too easy to falsify the value and purity of metals. Precious stones were too valuable to trade except for other gems and perhaps things like houses or a significant amount of labour, and also usually required an appraisal before being accepted at a certain value.

The first currency was actually inadvertently invented by a group of sculptors, who had done a substantial number of tiny carvings on small river rocks. These they traded as beads, at first, but then someone showed them to Erd Lord of the Unicorn-kalmaei, and he thought it was a brilliant idea to use them for currency. They were labour-intensive, and therefore hard to counterfeit, and no one would decide to melt them down or destroy them in order to make something else out of them. They changed little from their original bead concept, except that designs became standardized. And really, if someone was going to spend all that time counterfeiting them, more power (and wealth) to them.

Strange to say, this ‘currency’ became standard throughout the Four Kingdoms. The pieces were made of hard stone, and wore down slowly, and were convenient for making small purchases.

Eventually, someone wanted to tie the currency back to the metal standard, and they began rimming the stones with strips of gold and silver, even iron, though it was more common than the ‘precious metals’. Now counterfeiters needed both time, skill, and a little existing wealth in order to make copies of money. The state in conjunction with the carvers and metalworkers were of course the main producers if not the main users of money; the ones who made each ‘coin’ were allowed to keep half to introduce into circulation themselves, and were paid for the rest in food and sometimes shelter and workspace. (Official sanctions, as it were.) The primary fear with counterfeiters was quality control; no one wanted to trade something considered worthless.

For larger transactions, loose jewels were far more common to trade; not all of them were incorporated into jewelry, clothing, and decoration of all kinds. Rubies, sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, amythests, tiger eyes, topazes, anything that could be induced to gleam and/or possess transparency (not manufactured glass, of course) were considered greatly valuable. They were more convenient than carrying around loads of stone coins, but as said before, often required an appraisal, unless they were well known, like the Great Baroque Pearl of Kyri-il, a large and amazingly shaped pearl that had been passed from Lirar-Moihh Bay, where it was found, all over the kingdoms. It was worth about 2000 gold coins, which was a representation of a lump of about 2 square feet of gold (which many believed would be better off being used as a statue or something like that). Sometimes the pearl had been set in jewelry; some kalmaei are practical with every piece of beauty that comes their way (what do you do with shiny things? Wear them, of course!), but some do like to flaunt their wealth.

So the kalmaei were successful to themselves in their quest to find something with common value that they could trade instead of perhaps something that others did not want, or that they wished to keep for themselves. They could still trade anything they liked, for the economy was not strict and as long as both sides felt they were getting what they wanted, anything was fine. Some may have tried to exploit moral loopholes in the system, but kalmaei being long-lived, it simply wasn’t socially practical and most were shut down quickly.

Thoughts? Where am I totally wrong in these ideas? What can I do to improve them? I think the core is pretty good but I may be wrong in application. If there is anything I can explain to make things clearer, or if you make a comment on something that seems wrong to you but right to me, let me know and I will try to fix it.