How many U.S. Dollars is 1 denar worth

[Dr. Shekelstein]

I have have character who has 6 million denar and he is the sultan of a good chunk of Calradia. How much money does he have in today’s society.

[Barundin Grimtide]

We first have to consider WHAT kind of currency a denar is. Is it silver? Gold? Copper? I don't think it is ever mentioned what kind of material a denar is made out of, so let's just look at possible real life counterparts.

Denarii were the standard currency of the Roman Empire, like Denars are the standard currency of the Old Calradian Empire and present day Calradia. From there we could assume that Calradian Denars are the same as Roman Denarii due to their similar sounding name and circumstances within their own worlds, both being a currency of a continent spanning empire. Yet, converting the Roman Denarii to USD is a complicated process, so we'll just look at the silver content of it and determine the convertion based on that.

The silver content of the Roman Denarii, at least after Nero, was about 50 grains, 3.24 grams, or ​1⁄10 (0.105ozt) troy ounce. In the 2011 United States, one Denarii would equal $3.62 if the silver were 0.999 pure, but as I said this is complicated so take this value with a grain of salt. You have 6 million Denars, so 6 million times 3.62 equals $21,720,000.

[DaveDunno]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mon Mjorn:

We first have to consider WHAT kind of currency a denar is. Is it silver? Gold? Copper? I don't think it is ever mentioned what kind of material a denar is made out of, so let's just look at possible real life counterparts.

Denarii were the standard currency of the Roman Empire, like Denars are the standard currency of the Old Calradian Empire and present day Calradia. From there we could assume that Calradian Denars are the same as Roman Denarii due to their similar sounding name and circumstances within their own worlds, both being a currency of a continent spanning empire. Yet, converting the Roman Denarii to USD is a complicated process, so we'll just look at the silver content of it and determine the convertion based on that.

The silver content of the Roman Denarii, at least after Nero, was about 50 grains, 3.24 grams, or ​1⁄10 (0.105ozt) troy ounce. In the 2011 United States, one Denarii would equal $3.62 if the silver were 0.999 pure, but as I said this is complicated so take this value with a grain of salt. You have 6 million Denars, so 6 million times 3.62 equals $21,720,000.

You sir, deserve a cookie.

[The Wizard]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mon Mjorn:

We first have to consider WHAT kind of currency a denar is. Is it silver? Gold? Copper? I don't think it is ever mentioned what kind of material a denar is made out of, so let's just look at possible real life counterparts.

Denarii were the standard currency of the Roman Empire, like Denars are the standard currency of the Old Calradian Empire and present day Calradia. From there we could assume that Calradian Denars are the same as Roman Denarii due to their similar sounding name and circumstances within their own worlds, both being a currency of a continent spanning empire. Yet, converting the Roman Denarii to USD is a complicated process, so we'll just look at the silver content of it and determine the convertion based on that.

The silver content of the Roman Denarii, at least after Nero, was about 50 grains, 3.24 grams, or ​1⁄10 (0.105ozt) troy ounce. In the 2011 United States, one Denarii would equal $3.62 if the silver were 0.999 pure, but as I said this is complicated so take this value with a grain of salt. You have 6 million Denars, so 6 million times 3.62 equals $21,720,000.

Colour me impressed. You've obviously put some thought into this!
Alternatively, if you use stock prices of commodities, you could get a different value of exchange, although in the same region. Assuming the price of wheat remains relatively constant (it doesn't, but it's not a bad estimate), and sticking with Mon Mjorn's Roman Empire/Calaldrian Empire parrallel we can find that one silver denar is worth about £0.5, or two-thirds of a dollar. This is based off of the current stock worth of grain, about £4.40, or $5.90, per bushel, which, converting to Roman 'Modius', gives a value of 441 d.c, exchange currency, or 8.82 silver denars. From this, we find that 1 silver denar is about two-thirds of a dollar, so your character *only* owns around $4,000,000. This should, of course, all be taken with a pinch of salt-see what I did there? Let me know if I buggered up my calculations.

[Andbrew]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Mon Mjorn:

We first have to consider WHAT kind of currency a denar is. Is it silver? Gold? Copper? I don't think it is ever mentioned what kind of material a denar is made out of, so let's just look at possible real life counterparts.

Denarii were the standard currency of the Roman Empire, like Denars are the standard currency of the Old Calradian Empire and present day Calradia. From there we could assume that Calradian Denars are the same as Roman Denarii due to their similar sounding name and circumstances within their own worlds, both being a currency of a continent spanning empire. Yet, converting the Roman Denarii to USD is a complicated process, so we'll just look at the silver content of it and determine the convertion based on that.

The silver content of the Roman Denarii, at least after Nero, was about 50 grains, 3.24 grams, or ​1⁄10 (0.105ozt) troy ounce. In the 2011 United States, one Denarii would equal $3.62 if the silver were 0.999 pure, but as I said this is complicated so take this value with a grain of salt. You have 6 million Denars, so 6 million times 3.62 equals $21,720,000.

You could try to compare the cost of certai narmours like full plate armour or great sword price to their real life counterparts and get the price of a denar that way

[White Knight]

You can't conflate the economic systems because A) one is imaginary, and B) modern day finance bears little resemblance to anything they had in the distant past.

With point B) for example, city states were notorious for trying to cut costs by cheating on the materials, etc.

For your question, the best way to get a general understanding might be to attempt a comparison between staple items that are commonplace in both systems...like bread, or a horse, etc.

There's a problem with that approach too though...we don't know what the units of measurement are. In our game, we can buy bread for our army but we don't know how much bread we're actually buying. Is it one loaf, a dozen, a thousand?

For me, I would consider how long it takes me to earn a denar and then I'd look at what one denar can do for me in my game, then I'd apply that to my life and come up with a worthless number that appeased my addled mind and move on.

I think a day of (unskilled) labour at a lumber yard gets the player three denars (or peningas since it's Viking Conquest). Minimum wages in my area just went up to around fifteen dollars...eight hour day...8 X 15 = 120, then divide that by three (3 denars as a day wage) gets you forty bucks.

So my guess would be that a single denar is worth approximately forty Canadian dollars...give or take forty dollars, that is.

When I'm playing video games, I just consider it all "gold" and each "gold" is worth one dollar to me. Then I go out and get some more.

[DaveDunno]

*Eats popcorn while reading the thread.*

[Khrainos🧿]

Ursprungligen skrivet av ♫ Kamoba:

*Eats popcorn while reading the thread.*

*joins*

[ULTRA]

The economy makes no sense so you can just disregard everything

If a real life economist walked in here though, they'd probably compare the prices of all the food to their real life counterparts and conclude that a denar is worth about 3-4 USD. Like, a supply of bread is 25 denars and that's about 50 days of food. That's about 50 loaves of bread, which typically go for $1.50-$2 each in reality, so it's worth about $75-100. This would make things like the lordly plate armor in the range of $300K-$400K. Basically, only an amount that a lord could afford.

Other hot tips: a caravan's supply of 2-3 units of spices, around 1800-2400 denars in value, would be worth around 6000-10000 dollars. The price of basil is anywhere from $4/lb to $15/lb, making this roughly a cart load of spices.

[Tuidjy]

There are at least three valid ways to look at things:

1) Historical values. Assume that the Roman denarius is the same type of coin as the Calradian denar, and compare it to the price of silver.
2) Price of goods. How many horses, cows, trade goods, maille coats, etc. you can get with denars or with dollars.
3) Salaries for different troops. Compare how much an untrained peasant earns per day with what it would take you to hire a day laborer at the closest Home Depot.

If you do all these, the CD to USD exchange rate will be anywhere from 10 to .02, which is a variance of three orders of magnitude.

Basically, value does not transfer well across history. In the First World, a very nice sword of perfect steel can be had for $300... which is less than a night with a high end escort, and no amount of cash will let you keep a slave legally. That same sword could buy you a farm, and the slaves to run it, in pre-crucible steel times, and if you were to gift it to a powerful lord, it may set you up for life.

Also, in many historical times, money was not really the measure of wealth it is today. When one lord has a hundred knights, and enough land to keep them provisioned, and another has tons of gold but no warriors, the former can easily end up with everything.

If you are a king in Calradia and are not broke, you have more power that Trump. You'll still be freezing your аss off in the winter, and you still may die of an infected cut on your finger, but you will not have to worry about some plebs complaining about what you do or say.

[The Wizard]

Basically, we have no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ idea mate. Estimates range from about 200mil down to less than 20,000. Mean average is 60mil, give or take. Hope this has helped!

[Dr. Shekelstein]

How I do it is find the cost of 1 unit of bread and compare the prices to the real life empire that the faction was inspired by.

[Asphe]

No wonder my plate armor is so terrible, it's worth just a bit more than a few loaves of bread. I might stay conscious longer if I strapped loaves of bread to myself.

[Khorps]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Asphe:

No wonder my plate armor is so terrible, it's worth just a bit more than a few loaves of bread. I might stay conscious longer if I strapped loaves of bread to myself.

butter is actually better armor

[Tom]

...Out of all the comment threads i have gone-and sometimes slogged-through, this is the most pleasent one. Thanks for making my night a bit better gents.

[Andbrew]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Tom:

...Out of all the comment threads i have gone-and sometimes slogged-through, this is the most pleasent one. Thanks for making my night a bit better gents.

Get a life, you nerd