Page 272 of the Core Rulebook: 1000 coins are 1 Bulk.
Page 272 of the Core Rulebook: 1000 coins are 1 Bulk.
To add on to that: Anything less than 1000 coins is 0 Bulk. So 1999 coins is still 1 Bulk. Fractions don't count as light bulk.
Don't do the math of how much that would actually weight though, or the whole bulk systems breaks down and makes no sense. (Not that it was ever intended to make sense outside of a game streamlining mechanic.)
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So if you have 2000 coins in a party of 4, can you split them so everyone carries 500 and no bulk is incurred?
Don't do the math of how much that would actually weight though, or the whole bulk systems breaks down and makes no sense. (Not that it was ever intended to make sense outside of a game streamlining mechanic.)Come to think of it, that's probably overestimating how much bulk coins should take up (at least as long as they're properly stored in pouches and such).
The archetypal medieval coin was the silver penny or pfennig, which was 1/240th of a Carolingian pound. That's not pound as in a unit of currency, but as in one pound of silver. I can't find any definition for whether the Carolingian pound differed from the one in the Imperial system, but assuming they're reasonably close a thousand coins should have a weight of about 4 lbs. This coin was apparently the only type minted in Western Europe for quite a long time, and the echoes of this currency were still around in Europe until 1971, when the British switched to metric currency.
Then again, coins in D&D and its derivatives have historically been effin' huge. AD&D1 coins weighed in at a tenth of a pound which is just absurd, but AD&D2, 3e, 5e, and Pathfinder 1 (not sure about 4e, but I suspect it's the same) fixed the weight at 50 coins to a pound. Those are more like modern-day dollar coins. That would put 1000 coins at 20 lbs, which seems more appropriate for something with a very high ratio of value to weight.
I didn't include my math admittedly, but I was going with the assumption that a coin was the size of a quarter. I haven't seen mention of the size of a standard coin anywhere in Pathfinder lore that I can remember to base it off of.
So if you have 2000 coins in a party of 4, can you split them so everyone carries 500 and no bulk is incurred?
What's interesting is "Large creature treats 10 items of 1 Bulk as 1 Bulk" so as long as you make 100% sure there are 1999 in each bag it can carry 10 of those bags and it only costs a single bulk: now if you screw up and put 2000 thousand in a single bag it is MORE bulk to them than TEN bags of 1999 coins [ie 19990 is less bulk than 2000]... Also make sure you put those coins in a belt pouch instead of a sack so you can avoid the extra weight of the sack... Got to love bulk. :P