Board Thread:General Mod Discussion/@comment-32352572-20180627234422/@comment-33185350-20180628003501

That’s an interesting question. There are many ways it could be calculated:

1) You could do it by comparing offered trades to the value of those items in the real world. A Dwarven smith buys a diamond for 19c.  A quick google search reveals that $7,000 is a good ballpark estimate for a normal diamond around 1 carat.  This means that one coin is equal to about $368.  On the other hand, a good ballpark estimate (again from google) for a raw pork chop looks like around $1, but hobbits buy them for up to 4c.  So that means a coin is equal to $0.25, or one quarter.

2) You could calculate the amount of time it takes to earn money on average (I would suggest mining in the Misties, then selling all the gems and salt and mithril, and making coins from the silver), then compare that to hourly wages. Though there’s still a lot of variation on either side.

So basically depending on how you argue it you could get vastly different results.