Visual representations of gold?

[Yuven]

Ok, so I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons, and similar RPGs for some years now, but I have never seen any visual representations of how a given amount of gold looks like. For example, lets say you find 2000gp in a pile. How large would that pile be? Would it fit in a backpack? not that 2000gp would be an amount you would like to carry on your back, but that is besides the point. I really would like to get a good grip on how different amounts would look, and how one can practically move it. It might be a weird question, but it really has bugged me a while.

for example how much gold would this be?

[NichG]

I'd put that at about 3000gp-8000gp depending on what's in the chest. The various gold objects I'm putting at about 150gp apiece - they look like they weigh at least a pound, and due to craftsmanship they're worth ~3x their weight in gold. As far as the coins, the pile looks like it has about 1000 coins in it, and the chest would contain as many coins as the pile itself.

[KillianHawkeye]

2000 gp? Well, let's do the math, shall we?

The Player's Handbook says that 50 coins weigh one pound. So... 2000 divided by 50 equals 40 pounds. If we convert that into grams (you'll see why in a second), the Internet tells me that is 18,143.7 grams.

Now, the density of gold is about 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter. So we take 18,143.7 divided by 19.3 and we get a volume of gold of approximately 940 cubic centimeters. That means that if you melted down all those coins and molded them into a solid cube, it would be just under 10 centimeters on each side (or about 3.85 inches on each side, if you prefer).

Obviously, if you left them as coins, the irregular shape would create air pockets that will cause the mass to occupy a larger amount of space, but my guess is it all would still fit in a mid-size sack.



If you'd like a different visual for it, compare them to poker chips. Most people could probably hold a hundred poker chips if they cupped both hands together. Multiply two handfuls by 20 and you got your 2,000.

Google says that the width of a poker chip is just above .13 inches or 3.4 millimeters. That means a stack of 100 chips will be slighter more than 13 inches tall. And we're talking about 20 such stacks, or a single precarious stack about 22 feet and 2 inches in height. I hope there isn't a breeze!

[Slipperychicken]

Would it fit in a backpack? not that 2000gp would be an amount you would like to carry on your back, but that is besides the point.

2000gp is 40lb. That's a medium load for most characters, and trivial for a horse or other pack animal.

So it's absolutely an amount you can carry. You'd probably want a garbage-bag-sized sack though (and double-bag it in case it rips).

[Starbuck_II]

for example how much gold would this be?

Most of that is silver and copper pieces if you look closely. It takes 10 silver or 100 copper to be a gold piece.

[Rhynn]

Like KillianHawkeye shows, if you do the math, hoards of gold coins always end up being disappointingly small. Even with oversized D&D coins. (Real coins obviously varied hugely, but 150-300 to a pound would be much more common.)

However, fitting in a bag or backpack, and not tearing through it when lifted are two different things.

For instance, if we take the AD&D large sack (volume of 4 cubic feet) and fill it with coins (let's estimate 25% waste space), it'll weigh 3600 pounds! (And require 180,000 gold pieces!) So a "sack full of gold" is actually going to look pretty dang modest.

The AD&D large sack can actually handle 30 lbs., which would be 1500 oversized D&D coins. That comes out to a pile 8.9 cm (3.5 inches) to a side if melted down, a bit bigger when you account for waste space. So you're going to have a lot of empty sack around a small pile of coins.

Since I'm on the math... my poker chips (which look like a good size for a huge fantasy coin) are 20 mm in radius and 3 mm thick. That's pi*20mm*20mm*3mm = 3769.91 mm^3 (3.76991 cm^3). Multiply by the density of gold (19.30 g/cm^3) and they'd weigh 72.76 g each. That's 0.16 pounds... ouch. That's 6 to a pound, not 50!

Working the other way, 0.02 lbs (50 to a pound) is 9.07 grams, and in gold that'd be a volume of 469.95 cubic mm. At a thickness of 2 mm, we'd get a radius of 8.65 mm... a diameter of 17.3 mm. That's 1/13 inch thick and 2/3 inch across. A US penny is 19.05 mm (0.75 inches) in diameter and 1.55 mm (0.061 inches) thick. So D&D gold pieces are the size of a US penny (but weigh a bit more than 3.5 times as much). Incidentally, the 1344 English gold florin was 7 grams, so slightly smaller than this, and it's AFAIK one of the larger historical coins.

Reality is really disappointing, huh? Makes you want to switch to a silver standard just to make hoards bigger... (And the coins almost twice as big!)

NB: Quite possible I made a mistake somewhere, please do check my math.

[Yuven]

Well, the dragon hoards from now on must be made from copper coins xD
we cannot have a dragon sleeping on a measly carpet of gold...

Well this reminds me of one campaign when we got a chest full of platinum coins... and that chest was huge! About 160cm x 50cm x 80cm... I dont even want to know how much we were shipping around. granted it was the money that an order of inquisitors needed to pay a mage guild for checking out this brand new flying ship.

[Rhynn]

Well this reminds me of one campaign when we got a chest full of platinum coins... and that chest was huge! About 160cm x 50cm x 80cm... I dont even want to know how much we were shipping around. granted it was the money that an order of inquisitors needed to pay a mage guild for checking out this brand new flying ship.

With a wild guesstimate of 25% waste space, that's 30,265.1 lbs. of platinum (probably way beyond what any chest could actually support), which comes out (at a 1:50 ratio) to 1,513,255 platinum pieces.

It's almost depressing, but really, coffers or small boxes full of coin is the only realistic option - can't have sacks or chests full of the stuff, much less floors covered in it knee-deep in a dragon's lair.

Of course, if you throw in some goblets, swords, etc. (any less dense and space-efficient loot) into your treasure chest, and the coins act as filler, you can definitely have a chest full of treasure.

And yes, any dragon's bed-hoard would be enough to make the coins involved completely worthless by their commonness. Draconic inflation! (Now, if you make you dragons considerably smaller, you could get away with beds of silver coins, maybe.)

Incidentally, during all human history, an estimated 171,300 tonnes of gold have been mined. That would come out to 8,875 cubic meters, or a cube of gold a bit less than 21 meters (about 68 feet) to a side. The typical depiction of Smaug's hoard probably has considerably more gold than that.

[Vknight]

Ok, so I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons, and similar RPGs for some years now, but I have never seen any visual representations of how a given amount of gold looks like. For example, lets say you find 2000gp in a pile. How large would that pile be? Would it fit in a backpack? not that 2000gp would be an amount you would like to carry on your back, but that is besides the point. I really would like to get a good grip on how different amounts would look, and how one can practically move it. It might be a weird question, but it really has bugged me a while.

for example how much gold would this be?

It would be a lot of gold. Specifically 1 encounter with a smart theives worth

[Slipperychicken]

Reality is really disappointing, huh? Makes you want to switch to a silver standard just to make hoards bigger... (And the coins almost twice as big!)

Dude, currency is supposed to be light, compact, and easy to carry.


If you want a heavy currency, start trading cows or something. Let your dragons sleep on big piles of cows so you can have the wacky sidequest of removing it all from the dungeon.

[Lord Torath]

2000 gp? Well, let's do the math, shall we?

The Player's Handbook says that 50 coins weigh one pound. So... 2000 divided by 50 equals 40 pounds. If we convert that into grams (you'll see why in a second), the Internet tells me that is 18,143.7 grams.

Now, the density of gold is about 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter. So we take 18,143.7 divided by 19.3 and we get a volume of gold of approximately 940 cubic centimeters. That means that if you melted down all those coins and molded them into a solid cube, it would be just under 10 centimeters on each side (or about 3.85 inches on each side, if you prefer).

Obviously, if you left them as coins, the irregular shape would create air pockets that will cause the mass to occupy a larger amount of space, but my guess is it all would still fit in a mid-size sack.



If you'd like a different visual for it, compare them to poker chips. Most people could probably hold a hundred poker chips if they cupped both hands together. Multiply two handfuls by 20 and you got your 2,000.

Google says that the width of a poker chip is just above .13 inches or 3.4 millimeters. That means a stack of 100 chips will be slighter more than 13 inches tall. And we're talking about 20 such stacks, or a single precarious stack about 22 feet and 2 inches in height. I hope there isn't a breeze!

Taking this a bit further, you can determine that a gold piece has a volume of .47 cubic centimeters. If you assume a thickness of 2 mm, that gives an area of 2.35 square cm. Dividing by pi (3.14) and taking the square root gives you a radius of 0.86 cm or a diameter of 1.73 cm. A US dime is 1.79 cm, so your gold piece is just smaller than a dime (quite a bit smaller than your average poker chip) but about twice as thick. 2000 stacked up will be 4 meters or 13'-1 1/2" tall. Or about 80 rolls of dimes (50 per roll)

Edit: Fixed my math. Area of a circle is pi*r^2, not pi*d!

[JustSomeGuy]

On a similar topic, how much modern money, either $ or £, could you fit in a standard briefcase?

[Need_A_Life]

I have a bunch of old coins - not the valuable kind, just the kind that went out of circulation - that I've occasionally used for this sort of thing. I would say that I have ~10,000 coins and they fit in a small box in a drawer (incidentally, assuming they were still worth what they're marked with they'd be worth about 20USD combined). Now, these are small, thin coins, a lot smaller than D&D coins, but they've worked well as representations (especially since they're mostly copper, with a couple of silver or brass ones in-between).

If your country has a similar time of coin that is easy to get a hold of, I recommend their use. Once the

(not entirely relevant, but I've considered using spent shell casings for ammo counters for Western, military or zombie campaigns)

[Slipperychicken]

On a similar topic, how much modern money, either $ or £, could you fit in a standard briefcase?

Usually about 1-2 million if you're using big bills like 50s or 100s. Of course, modern drug lords will often use rare artworks in place of money, since it's less suspicious. And if it's legit (let's face it, you put it in a suitcase. it's not legit), digital accounts are the way to go. Unless you're the US military, in which case you load up planes full of cash and dump them out into the desert.

[Trekkin]

Is there any reason gold can't be alloyed with something lighter to make bulkier coins? Tumbaga, for example, still looks like gold, but it's not necessarily full of it.

[Xuc Xac]

Is there any reason gold can't be alloyed with something lighter to make bulkier coins? Tumbaga, for example, still looks like gold, but it's not necessarily full of it.

Same reason one dollar bills aren't printed on 8.5"x14" legal paper. People want currency that's easy to move. When they want to show how much wealth they have, they spend it on flashy bling.

[Deepbluediver]

This problem is one of the numerous reasons I disliked the magic-mart style setup. Even in a big city it doesn't seem reasonable to trundle through the street with 3 wagonloads of gold to buy your new suit or armor or weapon.

I always preferred it when the DM gave us distinct items, and if we wanted we could usually find an item of similar value to trade for. A few hundred to a few thousand gold is all you should even need to for most advanturing groups to live like kings in the D&D economy anyhow.

[Jay R]

Is there any reason gold can't be alloyed with something lighter to make bulkier coins? Tumbaga, for example, still looks like gold, but it's not necessarily full of it.

It's called electrum, and electrum coins were worth half a gold piece in 2E.

And on the subject of editions, coins were ten to the pound in 2E, not 50.

[Jeraa]

Is there any reason gold can't be alloyed with something lighter to make bulkier coins? Tumbaga, for example, still looks like gold, but it's not necessarily full of it.

Who says they aren't already? The 3.0 Players Handbook has a picture of a gold piece, with the note that it is actual size. Its 30mm across. Assuming its 3mm thick and solid gold, that coin would weigh about a quarter of a pound. If gold pieces are really that big, and yet are only 1/50th of a pound, then they would have to be an alloy. And one containing very little gold, at that. More like gold-plated.

[TheThan]

if you want to enrage your players, introduce a realistic-ish monetary exchange system. when they cross the border from kingdom X to kingdom Y, their gold is not work as much because of the marking on it. They have to get it exchanged.

Suddenly they go from having a lot of gold, to not having as much. it'll drive them nuts. Naturally the system works both ways so when they go from kingdom Y, to Kingdom X they're still losing gold. does it make sense? nope but then maybe the kingdom's full of corrupt officials.

[Deepbluediver]

Who says they aren't already? The 3.0 Players Handbook has a picture of a gold piece, with the note that it is actual size. Its 30mm across. Assuming its 3mm thick and solid gold, that coin would weigh about a quarter of a pound. If gold pieces are really that big, and yet are only 1/50th of a pound, then they would have to be an alloy. And one containing very little gold, at that. More like gold-plated.

If you visit a museum, you can see that historically, coins where more like the size of most modern coins, between dimes and quarters. D&D seems to have gotten suckered into the Hollywood notion that a coin needs to be more like a medallion.

if you want to enrage your players, introduce a realistic-ish monetary exchange system. when they cross the border from kingdom X to kingdom Y, their gold is not work as much because of the marking on it. They have to get it exchanged.

Suddenly they go from having a lot of gold, to not having as much. it'll drive them nuts. Naturally the system works both ways so when they go from kingdom Y, to Kingdom X they're still losing gold. does it make sense? nope but then maybe the kingdom's full of corrupt officials.

A commission on monetary exchanges is not uncommon, or definitely not illegal in most places. Just make sure that your players don't decided that it's safer and more lucrative to become currency speculators rather than dragon slayers. :)

[Slipperychicken]

if you want to enrage your players, introduce a realistic-ish monetary exchange system. when they cross the border from kingdom X to kingdom Y, their gold is not work as much because of the marking on it. They have to get it exchanged.

Suddenly they go from having a lot of gold, to not having as much. it'll drive them nuts. Naturally the system works both ways so when they go from kingdom Y, to Kingdom X they're still losing gold. does it make sense? nope but then maybe the kingdom's full of corrupt officials.

This one DM I played with pulled that crap on us once. I left his game a few sessions later in a rage, and the group didn't last much longer. Last I heard, he's still trying to get a game together, a year after the fact.


Realistically, if there's enough commercial traffic between Kingdoms X and Y, merchants should accept both, albeit at modified prices to reflect the exchange rate.

[Deepbluediver]

This one DM I played with pulled that crap on us once. I left his game a few sessions later in a rage, and the group didn't last much longer. Last I heard, he's still trying to get a game together a year later.

Alright, here's the issue. Monetary systems based on a metal with actual value (as opposed to paper money) are always worth something based on the weight or volume of the metal.

In otherwords, you should still be able to trade based on the weight of the metal, and in D&D I think that coinage is worth pretty much exactly the same as raw gold. You can't exactly declare that gold is worthless just because its got a different stamp on it, otherwise you are going to have an thriving black market spring up practically over night.


At least one ancient empire (roman, I think) got in trouble when it stamped its coins with a "value" worth less than the gold in it. People figured it out quick enough and simply shifted their barter accordingly.

You don't even need to go into antiquity for examples of this. Based on the weight and volume of the metals in it, a penny is worth something like 4 cents and a nickel is worth 7 or 8, I think. The US government had to pass a law to make destroying money illegal, just to prevent some one from demanding a million dollars in pennies and starting an "infinite money loop"

There are investors who are stockpiling coins in preparation for the day the government stops minting pennies and just rounds everything off to 5 or 10 cent amounts, so they can melt down their metal stockpiles and cash in.

[hamishspence]

If gold pieces are really that big, and yet are only 1/50th of a pound, then they would have to be an alloy. And one containing very little gold, at that. More like gold-plated.

Or pieces of gold foil (thick foil, but still foil).

[Ravens_cry]

Or pieces of gold foil (thick foil, but still foil).

Wouldn't really hold up well, and having your money be prone to disintegration is only good if you can constantly produce more from a non-precious source, i.e. paper money.

[Stray]

If you visit a museum, you can see that historically, coins where more like the size of most modern coins, between dimes and quarters. D&D seems to have gotten suckered into the Hollywood notion that a coin needs to be more like a medallion.

And those historical coins are also alloys, since coin made of pure gold would be too soft. And kings liked to cover their debts by manipulating alloy proportions of coins they were minting.

I tried to visualize wealth by level of a D&D character by spawning all the coins in Skyrim and it sadly crashed the thing around 3rd level.

[MrLemon]

Who says they aren't already? The 3.0 Players Handbook has a picture of a gold piece, with the note that it is actual size. Its 30mm across. Assuming its 3mm thick and solid gold, that coin would weigh about a quarter of a pound. If gold pieces are really that big, and yet are only 1/50th of a pound, then they would have to be an alloy. And one containing very little gold, at that. More like gold-plated.

Since both Weight and Diameter of the piece are given, it can't be 3mm thick ;)

So, 1 GP is 1/50 lbs. = 9.07g, which, using its density of 19.30 g/cm³ yields a volume of 470mm³, divided by the circular cross-section (r=15mm), means the piece is 0,66mm thick.

So, now I'm fired up mathematically!
Let's cram that gold into a box!
Assuming optimal packaging, which in case of cylindrical coins, means a layer-like arrangement, where each coin touches 6 other coins in the same layer (except at the edges of the layer).

By connecting the centers of three coins in a equilateral triangle, and calculating the area of said triangle we can deduce the "real" volume per coin (the triangle contains a sixth of the three coins each, or 1/2 coin total). Since the coins touch, the side-length is 30mm, resulting in an area per gold piece of about 2*390mm²=780mm², which means only about 10% of the volume in the Chest is air!

Ignoring the anomalies at the edges of the box, a 30x20x20cm chest (toaster-size ) can contain (300x200x200)/(780*0.66) = 23.300 Gold Pieces.

Addendum 1:
Close packed, sensibly thick gold pieces (i.e. the aforementioned 3mm), come in packs of about 5000gp/toaster.

Addendum 2:
Assuming a more liberal spacing (let's say 30% air) AND sensibly thick gold pieces, it's about 4000gp/toaster

[hamishspence]

Wouldn't really hold up well, and having your money be prone to disintegration is only good if you can constantly produce more from a non-precious source, i.e. paper money.

I'm not sure if a piece of gold 0.66 mm thick would disintegrate all that much.

[Ravens_cry]

I'm not sure if a piece of gold 0.66 mm thick would disintegrate all that much.

I am willing to bet it would. Pure gold is soft stuff.
Normal use would have it in pieces in far too short a time for precious metals.

[Lord Torath]

And on the subject of editions, coins were ten to the pound in 2E, not 50.

Really? I know 1st Edition was 10 to the pound, as well as BECMI, but pg 134 of the 1st Printing 2E DMG says 50 coins per pound.

The Dark Sun Boxed set went with the 50 coins per pound (pg 74 of the Dark Sun Rules Book)