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How exactly did economies work in ancient/medieval times? I understand polities would generally have their own currencies, but how did they manage international trade with differing currencies? And along that same vein, I keep seeing things about new rulers minting new coins when they take power.
How did this work in practical terms? Was it just a matter of the amount of precious metal content in the coins that were minted?
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>>2620360
>Was it just a matter of the amount of precious metal content in the coins that were minted?
No, not really. I'm not an expert but coins were always taken at their face value and not by weight of whatever metal they were minted with.
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A coin's practical value was based off of its amount of precious metal, which is why debasement was such a problem and gold from the New World crashed the Spanish economy. Rulers minted coins as a way to show their dominance; usurpers often went to the mints early on to change the face on the coins.
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>>2620400
So currency was effectively just a means to divide precious metals into specific units?
Was reusing the metals in coins for other purposes commonplace then? Say melting down a bunch of gold coins to create some piece of jewelry?
And for the minting part - did the old coins remain in circulation, or were they replaced?
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tally sticks nigga
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>>2620390
Uh, no? Inflation and coin devaluation was definitely a problem
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