Vagabond Elf
Well-Known Member
The big problem I have with most of these is - how would you actually use them as money? The Book of Boba Fett coins are fairly good for that, and the Old Republic Credits aren't awful, but the others would be horrible.
Money has a few traits that are really important.
First, it has to intuitively feel valuable. Okay, most of the coins hit that note; in-universe they'd be made out of something that felt like a valuable metal, and the size of them would add to the sense of value. (They might be actual precious metals, or they might just evoke it. Consider a British "round pound" coin that looks like it's made of gold and is very heavy for it's size, but is actually nickel-brass.)
Second, it has to be convenient to carry and use. Coins are inherently less convenient, of course, but their durability and sense of value tends to trump that. However, the vast majority of real-world coins are much smaller than these. Most coins are no bigger than a US/Canadian quarter, a UK 10p (or, pre-decimal, 1 shilling), or a Euro 50c. All of these are about 25mm in diametre. Nowadays I'm not aware of anything bigger than 30mm in diametre; the Canadian Twonie is 28mm, and trust me, when you have a pocket full of those, you really notice.
The Flan get a bit of a pass from me for this one, because they're meant for Mon Calamari who have big, awkward (in comparison to human) hands and would need big coins. But all the others are huge!
Third, and most important, their value needs to be easy to identify. The only "coins" that have any denominations marked on them are the Old Republic credits. The pattern of squares doesn't mean much to us, but we can assume they are quickly and easily read by the people who routinely use them. (As a Canadian who occasionally visits the US, I'm very familiar with how a marking system can be easy for those who are used to it and a n absolute pain for those who aren't.) The "Boba Fett" coins are all different shapes and sizes, which would also work for determining value - although they'd be a lot more useful if it was actually marked on the coin somewhere, I've also got real-world coins that have the same problem.
One could argue that the Flan have markings that aren't visible to the human eye, but that would very much limit their utility for anyone who wasn't a Mon Calamari. The Mandalorian coins and the Imperial Credits, though, are completely identical except for colour. And colour is not a good way to differentiate different coins. What if you're colour-blind? What if you're *actually* blind? What if your helmet is on the fritz and you've only got low-light mode so everything is shades of green?
I figure there's two possibilities for how these would actually work in-character.
First, that these are not meant to serve as currency but rather are ingots. Much like one can go buy a 1 troy ounce gold bar and have a known quantity of a precious metal, perhaps the Mandalorian coins and Imperial Credits are not coins per se, but are certified to be a known quantity of precious metal. This is more plausible to me for the Mandalorian coins since (to my memory) the only place we see them is in the betting pools in Solo, and one could easily pitch a gold bar on a poker table, agree on a value, and carry on in the real world as well. (Well, in some settings, anyway.) I'm pretty sure we see the Imperial credits being used as money in Rebels, though, so that makes it less likely that these are just ingots.
Second, that the in-character versions would have more markings. For the Mandalorian coins, one could argue that the mythosaur is just the obverse, and that on the reverse there would be a marking of value. For the Imperial credits, one could argue that the R.O.W.E. symbology should be replaced with markers of value. The R is probably supposed to be the credit symbol, and the other characters could be numbers or the Star Wars equivalent of Roman numerals. Especially for the Imperial credits, this makes sense to me - the design, so far as I know, originated in Rebels. Rebels was working quickly to a tight budget, the show frequently took shortcuts on the art and heavily stylised the details, and the coins were never meant to be held in close-up. So it makes sense that they used placeholder symbols that are only being replicated now because of the fan base's slavish devotion to recreating every last detail even when it's obviously not supposed to be on the "real" thing. (Such as recreating the German proof marks on blaster props.)
The Flan are a bit more awkward, but I'd still argue that they fit in the second category, with the caveat that the markings may not be suitable for human eyes because they weren't meant to be used by humans. Though I think we'd all agree with NakedMoleRat that the Dok-Ondar Flan are not accurate in any case.
Anyway. I don't want to run down folks who want screen-accurate recreations. Much of my grumbles are devoted to the prop design, not the recreations thereof. But it's a thing that bugs me! Beta Cygni's decision to add denominations to their Bantu Spirit inspired coins suggests I'm not the only one, either. In my SW universe, the Imperial Credits will have different markings based on value, and the Mandalorian coins will have denominations on the other side of the coin.
(And now I'm wondering if I could build an Imperial "credstick" where the markings were actually a display that could change depending on current value.)
Ulmtimately, this post exists because I'm feeling out-of-sorts and needed a safe thing to grumble about. I hope it was at least mildly entertaining!
Money has a few traits that are really important.
First, it has to intuitively feel valuable. Okay, most of the coins hit that note; in-universe they'd be made out of something that felt like a valuable metal, and the size of them would add to the sense of value. (They might be actual precious metals, or they might just evoke it. Consider a British "round pound" coin that looks like it's made of gold and is very heavy for it's size, but is actually nickel-brass.)
Second, it has to be convenient to carry and use. Coins are inherently less convenient, of course, but their durability and sense of value tends to trump that. However, the vast majority of real-world coins are much smaller than these. Most coins are no bigger than a US/Canadian quarter, a UK 10p (or, pre-decimal, 1 shilling), or a Euro 50c. All of these are about 25mm in diametre. Nowadays I'm not aware of anything bigger than 30mm in diametre; the Canadian Twonie is 28mm, and trust me, when you have a pocket full of those, you really notice.
The Flan get a bit of a pass from me for this one, because they're meant for Mon Calamari who have big, awkward (in comparison to human) hands and would need big coins. But all the others are huge!
Third, and most important, their value needs to be easy to identify. The only "coins" that have any denominations marked on them are the Old Republic credits. The pattern of squares doesn't mean much to us, but we can assume they are quickly and easily read by the people who routinely use them. (As a Canadian who occasionally visits the US, I'm very familiar with how a marking system can be easy for those who are used to it and a n absolute pain for those who aren't.) The "Boba Fett" coins are all different shapes and sizes, which would also work for determining value - although they'd be a lot more useful if it was actually marked on the coin somewhere, I've also got real-world coins that have the same problem.
One could argue that the Flan have markings that aren't visible to the human eye, but that would very much limit their utility for anyone who wasn't a Mon Calamari. The Mandalorian coins and the Imperial Credits, though, are completely identical except for colour. And colour is not a good way to differentiate different coins. What if you're colour-blind? What if you're *actually* blind? What if your helmet is on the fritz and you've only got low-light mode so everything is shades of green?
I figure there's two possibilities for how these would actually work in-character.
First, that these are not meant to serve as currency but rather are ingots. Much like one can go buy a 1 troy ounce gold bar and have a known quantity of a precious metal, perhaps the Mandalorian coins and Imperial Credits are not coins per se, but are certified to be a known quantity of precious metal. This is more plausible to me for the Mandalorian coins since (to my memory) the only place we see them is in the betting pools in Solo, and one could easily pitch a gold bar on a poker table, agree on a value, and carry on in the real world as well. (Well, in some settings, anyway.) I'm pretty sure we see the Imperial credits being used as money in Rebels, though, so that makes it less likely that these are just ingots.
Second, that the in-character versions would have more markings. For the Mandalorian coins, one could argue that the mythosaur is just the obverse, and that on the reverse there would be a marking of value. For the Imperial credits, one could argue that the R.O.W.E. symbology should be replaced with markers of value. The R is probably supposed to be the credit symbol, and the other characters could be numbers or the Star Wars equivalent of Roman numerals. Especially for the Imperial credits, this makes sense to me - the design, so far as I know, originated in Rebels. Rebels was working quickly to a tight budget, the show frequently took shortcuts on the art and heavily stylised the details, and the coins were never meant to be held in close-up. So it makes sense that they used placeholder symbols that are only being replicated now because of the fan base's slavish devotion to recreating every last detail even when it's obviously not supposed to be on the "real" thing. (Such as recreating the German proof marks on blaster props.)
The Flan are a bit more awkward, but I'd still argue that they fit in the second category, with the caveat that the markings may not be suitable for human eyes because they weren't meant to be used by humans. Though I think we'd all agree with NakedMoleRat that the Dok-Ondar Flan are not accurate in any case.
Anyway. I don't want to run down folks who want screen-accurate recreations. Much of my grumbles are devoted to the prop design, not the recreations thereof. But it's a thing that bugs me! Beta Cygni's decision to add denominations to their Bantu Spirit inspired coins suggests I'm not the only one, either. In my SW universe, the Imperial Credits will have different markings based on value, and the Mandalorian coins will have denominations on the other side of the coin.
(And now I'm wondering if I could build an Imperial "credstick" where the markings were actually a display that could change depending on current value.)
Ulmtimately, this post exists because I'm feeling out-of-sorts and needed a safe thing to grumble about. I hope it was at least mildly entertaining!