Ghyll talk:Harrabloon Bank

There are some other changes you'd need to make if you're gonna use quezloos. See the following blurbs from the Bureau of Forgotten Knowledge: The first great discovery of The Bureau was also under Meldersen's presidency: in conjunction with the Council for Quezlarian Research, The Bureau discovered the origins for Ghyll's unit of currency, the Quezlarian Ooo. Perhaps somewhat startlingly at the time, the research confirmed the traditional legend that our currency is named after the initial remark of Quezlar 6 upon discovering the first stone of dazzlingly beautiful Oooite. As a gesture of thankfulness, the Council for Quezlarian Research presented The Bureau with an Oooite stone said to be from the personal collection of Quezlar 6. (Here, notably, the "origin" of Ghyll's unit of currency, and also that it's "Oooite", not bronze). Likewise, Quezlar would have discovered and created quezloos far before the bank was founded (roughly -300 EC), so Olaff couldn't be on the face of the coin at that time. --Morbus Iff 07:45, 3 Nov 2004 (EST)

I see no difficulties here, although the Bank might more fitly be described as a private mint. During the U.S. Civil War and afterwards, lots and lots of banks issued their own paper currency with a wide variety of symbols printed on it; indeed, the U.S. Secret Service was originally set up by President Lincoln to track down counterfeiters (protecting presidents came much later), since it was easy to counterfeit bills issued by say, the First Bank of Bangor, Maine -- who in California was likely to have seen a genuine one? So it is not every Quezloo that looks as described in the article, but only those issued by Harrabloon. Consider also the euro, which has one side standardized and the other specific to the nation that issues it. --Jcowan 17:12, 3 Nov 2004 (EST)

Alright. Historical and foreign ignorance has proved the cause of my first concern, but surely if a Quezloo is made from Oolite, it can't also be made from bronze, right? Or has a foreign country taken a silver nickel, and made a paper bill of it, also called a nickel, and also worth the same amount? --Morbus Iff 17:17, 3 Nov 2004 (EST)

Sure. Nickels are themselves an instance of this: the original 5 cent coin was silver and called a "half dime". It got to be too small to handle, though, so the U.S. mints switched first to pure nickel (hence the current nickname) and now to nickel/copper alloy. No foreign countries required, though if you like there's Panama, whose coins used to be identical in size, weight, and value to the U.S.'s, differing only in the inscription. This was primarily so they could use U.S. vending machines in both the Canal Zone and the rest of the country. --Jcowan 17:20, 3 Nov 2004 (EST)

I was formulating a reply when I noticed the comments by the learned Mr. Cowan. My thanks as you have said what I was thinking. I realise the modern minting of coins in Folktown is now different to the way it was done when the currency was invented, but that is not abnormal. Much of our modern currency bears no resemblance to that which existed a few hundred years ago. Indeed in the UK and Australia, the entire system was changed from the cumbersome old pounds, shillings, pence (not to mention thrupence, guineas, sixpence, etc.) to a decimalised currency. It appears that a similar evolution has occured in Ghyll. Maybe the story of the change is worth a topic in the lexicon? --Dok 18:35, 4 Nov 2004 (EST)