The value of Precious Stones

[natehale1971]

Originally Posted by copeab

I'm not that sure that precious metals or stones are going to be worth that much in T2K. The primary reason they are used as currency is because they have little real vale otherwise. You can't fire gold from a gun, eat or drink gold, or use use gold to fuel your generator. Ten kilos of gold is just shiny metal; ten kilos of lead can at least be used to make bullets.

(this is a long way of saying that I think in 2000 you will see mostly barter)

Very true, but even in such a situation people would still be desiring such items (even dollars might still be seen of value in some areas). There were alot of people complaining about the use of dollars in Romero's zomibe movie 'Land of the Dead'... but something has value if anyone has a desire to own or pocess it (thus why we call them precious metals and stones).

Value exists in what someone is willing to give you for it. Now I really do agree that metals like lead and steel (gunpowder and brass cartridges for that matter) would be worth alot more than any precious metals and/or stones we still have to realize that there are others out there who place more value on other items and make them more valuable than we'd expect (thus why Gold and Silver prices increase when cash currencies decline). Hell, fuel would be worth alot more than anything else in a post-apoc setting as we saw in Road Warrior and Beyond the Thunderdome since production would be nearly impossible.

But we humans are very strange that way we desire in what we desire to pocess.

But everything has to have something to measure itself upon. It's one of the reasons why people didn't understand the d20 Modern use of Wealth checks (or purchase checks) instead of monatary values. But people had/have such a hard time using the Wealth check system, we had to come up with monetary values for 'extras' that our characters would have while using the wealth system for the more mudane things they would already pocess.