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Just making around with a currency system and I'm looking for a suggestion for a half copper coin. I'm not planning to try anything too complicated or "realistic" I just want to add a few currency values for low level commoners to pay for things not on the boomtown/adventurer market and for high level adventurers to use to pay for more expensive items than using a cartload of gold coins. The two options I'm considering are . . .
1) Copper coins cut into halves/quarters with the quarter copper being a bit e.g. 2 bits for a bunch of cherries. If I go with this one.
2) The other option is too introduce a tin coin below copper which I'm disinclined to do as it least to a bunch of questions like what if tins more valuable in that region etc and as 2 tin = 1 copper it mucks up the 10 to 1 ratio for different coin types. So I'd prefer to go with the above version.
The currency would be . . .
Gemstones
Bars
Platinum
Gold
Silver
Copper
Half-copper
Bit
Bars are trade-bars of precious metals nabbed from DND. Basically silver = 5GP per lbs and then you divide/multiply by 10 for copper, gold, platinum. They come in 1lb, 2lb, 5lb and 10lb varieties. So a 10lb platinum bar is worth 5,000 gold (10 X 500)and a 1 lb copper trade bar is worth 5 silver (1 x 0.5).
Gems are worth variable values as normal e.g. you buy a 5,000 gp diamond its worth 5,000 gp.
Half coppers would probably be the easiest to integrate into the lore of any given world, since coins that had been broken in half would eventually just come to be accepted as half of that coin. This could also be true for any coin.
Coins might be designed to be easily be broken in half, with mending cantrips or magic items that reform them to full coins.
Half coins might be called a "half" or "crescents".
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Hmmm I do like crescents especially since the breaking is unlikely to be a neat split down the middle. Half doesn't work as easily unless its got a name e.g. penny halpenny but hacopper or halopper sounds odd to me. Yes . . .
Platinum
Gold
Silver
Copper
as the standard adventuring currencies.
Crescents
Bits
Seeing some use amongst the lowest classes and
Gems
Trade Bars
For the purchases of tens of thousands of gold. I like this thanks.
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For coins and half-coins of tin, 'moons' and 'half-moons' (or crescents, as above) could work as well.
My own fantasy coin wonkiness includes different coin preferences for different races and nations (humans love their gold, and have big Pirates of the Carribean style 'doubloons' that weigh 10x as much as standard gold pieces as their 'big coin', but elves prefer going straight from silver to mithril). Nobody uses platinum. It's copper > silver > gold > mithril > adamantine, with the adamantine 'bits' being tiny black d4 looking studs used only by dwarves, who are also the only race to have an entire sub-class of coins based around alloys like electrum and brass.
You could have the copper coins called "eyes" (and stamped with an eye on one face) and the half-coppers called "winks."
Some other suggestions for naming other currency (depending on what is stamped on one face):
Silver coins- "moon", "prince or princess" (the current heir), "shield" (with the ruling family's heraldry device)
Gold coins- "crown", "king or queen" (the current ruler), "sun", "throne"
Platinum coins- "dragon", "emperor", "star"
Each coin would probably have an official name, like sovereign or guinea or thaler or franc or mark or groat or escudo or yen or renminbi or kroner or dollar or shilling or penny, depending on its country of issue. Sometimes this is just a matter of weight (pound, peso, lira). Or proportion (half-crown, cent, centime, two shillings, half-penny, farthing). Then you'd get slang (bob, buck, quid). So it's a matter of what you're after.
For a half-copper, it's possibly a matter of what the copper is otherwise called. But for slang, I can imagine: Two-bit, Chop, Hack, Part, Tupper, Pair, Moon, Poke. This last because it's an awkward shape that'll poke things with its inconvenient corners.
Being a small coin, it's more a concern of poor people, so they'll be the ones to name it.
I wouldn't even use metal. Instead, use something cheap, and locally produced, such as clay.
It doesn't even need to be an proper currency. Most nobles high enough in the government to handle minting would have little personal need for denominations that low.
So instead, the local market creates fractional tokens as needed. They would be little better than poker tokens, and would only have value because the locals accept them as currency.
There is actually a long history of weird locally made bank notes and the like. Once you get past coins made from widely accepted trade goods (gold, silver), then it all comes down to trust, confidence, and the likelihood that the other party will find the coin useful (such as when people have plans to do business in a foreign land). If it comes from a places people don't want to go to, then you basically have monopoly money.
The nature of this kind of currency can actually be used as a tool of control by corrupt businesses seeking ACTUAL monopolies. ie- "We only pay you in our 'Honest John's Fun Bucks!'. Which you can only use to buy items in our own 'Honest John's Stores'. What? You want real money so you can leave, or to buy goods to start your own store? HAHAHAHAHA!.... your weekly wages are reduced by 2 fun bucks from now on".
This would also explain why adventurers never deal with this kind of currency. They typically move around too much to see much use out of local currency, and letting the locals keep the change for our copper is actually worth it just to reduce the hassle.
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Could always give things names based on something other than the material they are made of. Like make the name something related to the relative value i.e. cent = 1/100th, quarter = 1/4th, etc.
Maybe base it on the metric system or something...milli, centi, deci, etc. since the games currency is based around a 10/100 scale.
Maybe make each coin have a number of sides corresponding to its value, with names like Decagon 10, Hectogon 100, etc
Or, just make something up...if you are building a world with detailed lore, name coins after famous leaders, heroes, or countries. Have coins of the same value from different nations have different names and appearances...find treasure in some archaic style that is no longer used in some ancient tomb (like finding gold doubloons instead of gold dollar coins). Something as simple as mundane currency can add a whole new layer of depth and realism to your world. Look at all the multitude of names for currency in the real world...dollars, euros, francs, pesos, rubles, yen, yuan, etc.
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Each coin would probably have an official name, like sovereign or guinea or thaler or franc or mark or groat or escudo or yen or renminbi or kroner or dollar or shilling or penny, depending on its country of issue. Sometimes this is just a matter of weight (pound, peso, lira). Or proportion (half-crown, cent, centime, two shillings, half-penny, farthing). Then you'd get slang (bob, buck, quid). So it's a matter of what you're after.
For a half-copper, it's possibly a matter of what the copper is otherwise called. But for slang, I can imagine: Two-bit, Chop, Hack, Part, Tupper, Pair, Moon, Poke. This last because it's an awkward shape that'll poke things with its inconvenient corners.
Being a small coin, it's more a concern of poor people, so they'll be the ones to name it.
I believe they do https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/List_of_currencies however these are new currencies.
I'm going to go with crescent and quarter I believe. Unnoficial coinage used by the lowers classes. I'm going to not use the local "coinage" lemeres because I feel the magic/nature of Golarion would mean we'd have fewer of those around than in real life. Especially since the gunslinger implies to me its the equivilent of the 17th/18th century. Of course that isn't to say the majority of what the lower classes outside the main cities wouldn't use barter over currency. That's agreed value for the item rather than a "currency" e.g. 2 chickens for a share of your goats milk next foaling season.
I'm going to go with crescent and quarter I believe. Unnoficial coinage used by the lowers classes. I'm going to not use the local "coinage" lemeres because I feel the magic/nature of Golarion would mean we'd have fewer of those around than in real life. Especially since the gunslinger implies to me its the equivilent of the 17th/18th century. Of course that isn't to say the majority of what the lower classes outside the main cities wouldn't use barter over currency. That's agreed value for the item rather than a "currency" e.g. 2 chickens for a share of your goats milk next foaling season.
Certain types of goods were often used as currencies and stores of value.
Salt was commonly used as a currency (at least in regions away from the sea or other easy sources). It is necessary to everyone, and consumable so demands stays rather constant within an area. It can be divided into smaller portions with relative easy, and it doesn't deteriorate easily.
On the other end of the spectrum, you can have certain things like jewelry types as a standardized currency. Celtic Torqs (collar like necklaces and arm bands) were often traded either whole or broken up ('for change'), and it is certainly an easily to handle form of gold than bars.