Actually,
fifty silver tarn disks was an extremely high price, and
indicated the girl was probably of high caste as well as
extremely beautiful. An ordinary girl, of low caste, comely
but untrained, might, depending on the market, sell for
as little as five or as many as thirty tarn disks.
---Outlaw of Gor
, p 193
Currency
Money
on Gor is only one of the ways of payment used. Much of
the Gorean economy, especially in non-urban areas, relies
on trade of various goods. Coinage is, much like on earth,
habitually specific to the area or City.
For
example, a 'double tarn' is twice the weight of a 'tarn'.
It seems there are usually eight tarsk bits in a copper
tarsk, and that these are the result of cutting a circular
coin in half, and then the halves in half, and then each
of these halves in half. An analogy would be cutting the
round, flat Gorean loaves of Sa-Tarna bread into eight pieces.
There
are approximately something like one hundred copper tarsks
in a silver tarsk in many cities. Similarly, something like
ten silver tarsks would apparently be equivalent, depending
on weights, etc., to one gold piece, say, a single 'tarn'.
Accordingly on this approach, the equivalencies, very approximately
and probably only for certain cities, would be eight tarsk
bits to the copper tarsk, one hundred copper tarsks to a
silver tarsk, and ten silver tarsks to a gold piece, a single
tarn. On this approach, there would be, literally, 8,000
tarsk bits in a single gold piece.
---Magicians of Gor
, footnotes, p 469
The
tarsk is a silver coin, worth forty copper tarn disks.
--- Assassin of Gor
, p 160
Using these
particular quotes then, the basic unit being the copper
tarsk bit.
The
copper tarsk bit
Basic unit of currency.
The
copper tarsk
Equivalent to 8 tarsk bits.
The
copper tarn
Equivalent to 2 and a half copper tarsks or 20 copper tarsk
bits.
Hup
wildly thrust a small, stubby, knobby hand into his pouch
and hurled a coin, a copper tarn disk, to Kuurus who caught
it..
--- Assassin of Gor, p 13
The
silver tarsk
Equivalent to 40 copper tarns, 100 copper tarsks or 800
copper tarsk bits.
Dumbfounded
I reached in my pouch and handed her a coin, a silver Tarsk.
---Assassin of Gor, p 760
The
gold tarn
Equivalent to 10 silver tarks, 400 copper tarns, 1000 copper
tarks or 8000 copper tarsk bits.
Without
speaking, the man took twenty pieces of gold, tarn disks
of Ar, of double weight, and gave them to Kuurus...
--- Assassin
of Gor, p 4
As
for the cost of things....
Five
pieces of gold, in its way, incidentally, is also a fortune
on Gor. On could live, for example, in many cities, although
not in contemporary Ar, with its press on housing and shortages
of food, for years on such resources.
---Magicians of Gor, pp 468-469
...In
many paga taverns, one may have paga and food, and a girl
for the alcove, if one wants for a single copper tarsk.
Dancers, to be sure, sometimes cost two.
---Renegades of Gor
, pp 51-52
Actually,
fifty silver tarn disks was an extremely high price, and
indicated the girl was probably of high caste as well as
extremely beautiful. An ordinary girl, of low caste, comely
but untrained, might, depending on the market, sell for
as little as five or as many as thirty tarn disks.
---Outlaw of Gor, p 193
A
golden tarn disk was a small fortune. It would buy one of
the great birds themselves, or as many as five slave girls.
---Tarnsman of Gor
, p 191