Board Thread:Midian Q&A/@comment-24302820-20150928201229/@comment-24302820-20160501215118

Historic coins were rather small, especially those made with gold or silver. Rarity of the metals was the primary reason for this. Our world's gold supply was increased by two orders of magnitude by the gold rushes in California and Alaska, according to one source. Other factors that limited coin sizes were the practice of coin shaving--which is a lot harder to get away with if the coins are already quite small--and the issuing governments progressively devaluing coins by making them smaller and less pure by tiny increments over time.

Yes, bezants are quite small, but they are gold, which gives them some cachet in foreign markets, even though they are basically $4 coins. Formour's gold guilder is five times as much. This makes them a much more appreciable coin in mass (though gold's density means that the coins are still rather trim in volume) but the meme that Bizzannites have lots of gold is still solidly in place. This is ironically amplified by the small size of the bezant. Their comparative tiny size and light weight means that you need to carry a bunch of them for any appreciable carried wealth.

The Half Eagle $5 coin (US: 1795-1929) was 52 coins to the pound, and about an inch across, thus making it a good model for the Formourian guilder.

With silver, things are a bit kinder. Florins come in at pretty close to a quarter, if I'm remembering correctly. The small weight and value of Bizzannite silver points still means that these are tiny little dots of coins, but this is intentional.

The oldschool coins of D&D that weighed in at a full troy ounce--but rather low value--may have lent themselves better to huge troves and chests bursting with coins, but these were quite ahistorical. I was wanting something much more reasonable, which is why Midian uses silver as the primary metal for money, and smaller coins. It just seems a bit off to modern minds because we are used to fiat currencies and coins made from base metals: bigger volumes without any appreciable weight increase, and quite low values.