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Cheap Gold Coins (view source)

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The most common gold coins of the era were worth around six shillings (a bit under a third of a pound) or more, so for most people, one (generic) gold coin would represent at least a few weeks' earnings, if not a few months'. You would not use gold to do your grocery shopping.
 
Contrast [[Ridiculous Future Inflation]]. Compare [[Worthless Yellow Rocks]]. See also [[Gold -Silver -Copper Standard]].
{{examples|Examples:}}
== Anime & Manga ==
* Averted in ''[[Spice and Wolf (Light Novel)|Spice and Wolf]]'', where in one episode Lawrence has to exchange his gold coins for silver in order to buy clothing (the vendors wouldn't have change). Also one of the early plot arcs involves speculation on the silver content of one nation's coins.
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== Live Action TV ==
* Averted in an episode of the ''[[Babylon 5 (TV)|Babylon 5]]'' follow-up ''[[Crusade (TV)|Crusade]]''; the crew visits a human colony which is voluntarily living at a pre-industrial level. Captain Gideon goes to a tavern and holds up a gold-colored coin, asking for whatever it will buy. The tavernkeeper responds that it's enough to buy the entire tavern. Not just all the food and drink ''in'' it. ''All'' of it.
 
== [[Tabletop Game]] ==
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* Gold pieces are ''[[Runescape (Video Game)|Runescape]]'''s standard [[Global Currency]]. A typical tavern might charge one or two gold pieces for a mug of beer. A chocolate cake is about 400 gold pieces. A typical piece of armour could be anywhere from 40,000 to [[Adam Smith Hates Your Guts|20,000,000]]. A [[Commonplace Rare|pumpkin]] costs hundreds of millions.
* Almost averted in ''[[Dragon Age (Video Game)|Dragon Age]]'', where one gold coin equals 100 silver coins or 10,000 copper coins. IRL, the respective metals' prices ratio is about 427:8:1. However, a standard dagger costs 8 silvers in ''Origins'' and 5s 24c in ''II'', which is about five bucks by the same calculation as used in the D&D example above.
* ''[[Nethack]]'': A fortune cookie costs 7 gold ''[[Shout -Out|zorkmids]]", a food ration 45 zorkmids, and artifact weapons cost a few thousand zorkmids. Back-calculation from the weight system suggests that a zorkmid weighs about 40 grams, or about one and a quarter troy ounces. In the last 10 years, [[Real Life]] gold has varied between approximately $200 and $2000 per troy ounce, so that's $1,750-$17,500 for the fortune cookie, $11,250-$112,500 for the food ration, and a cool million or ten for Excalibur.
* The ''[[Ultima (Video Game)|Ultima]]'' series is an odd case with this. The existence of silver and copper coins in the game world is mentioned, but you only ever see gold yourself. A person working at the mint in ''Ultima VI'' shows you copper and silver coins, and then says something like "A grand adventurer such as yourself would surely only deal in gold." That still doesn't explain why one night at a regular inn can cost twenty gold.
* ''[[Castlevania]]'': The absolute cheapest, most worthless crap goes for 100 gold.
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[[Category:The Gilded Index]]
[[Category:Cheap Gold Coins]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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