That's right, I'm running for the Dumbest Thread Ever contest and thought I have chances to win. As the title says, how much is a Septim worth in US dollars? I always thought Septims had a one to one equivalence to USD but to me it looks like Skyrim's currency leave something to be desired:

Firewood = 5 gold
Proudspide Manor = 36,000 gold

Firewood is bloody expensive and I don't see any reason why it should be, while houses are way too underpriced, Proudspide Manor should be sold at no less than ten times its current value. Also, once you have mastered Alchemy you can easily craft paralyzing potions worth 5,000 gold each.. now seriously, wth? In a so unbalanced economic system you never can tell how much your gold is really worth. Thoughts?

We'd have to take the prices of all the in game items, find out a value system and compare average household costs and find that equivalent in USD.

As it stands now, there is no actual exchange value. since no other currency is mentioned, and even if it were, that currency has no exchange value compared to our dollar. It would be a rough guesstimate at best.

it is worth how much one would give for it, like everything.

Well, according to the http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Bread#Bread a loaf of bread costs 2 Septims, so that gives you a good & realistic basis for comparison. In my local supermarket I can buy bread for about 1 Euro, so that would make 1 Septim=1/2 Euros and as result the Proudspide Manor = 36,000 gold =18,000 Euros, which is at least a couple of orders of magnitude off .

Answering to your question is impossible because prizes are different on Tamriel and they are so for gaming reasons. Firewood costs 5 gold so it's worth for your time to work for lumber mills and innkeepers by making some firewood. Proudside Manor costs 36,000 gold so player can buy it without any greater financial problems.

Not everyone has 360,000 gold they can just throw around, and not everyone wants to just spam potions until they can afford it.

That's a bad argument actually, as in the real world very few can spend say a million $ for a house, but still there are many houses (manors etc) that are being sold for this amount of money. Also, nobody actually forces you to buy all houses in the game, right?

1 septim = .65 USD ?

If my earlier argument applies, then yes. Obviously, they don't contain too much gold

Well, here we pay almost the equivalent of 2 Euros for bread, so it all depends on how expensive things are in general...

Agreed, but the conclusion still applies, ie 1 Septim is more or less 1 Euro and therefore the Proudspire manor is waaaaaaaay too cheap.

It's kind of a moot point as the value of items fluctuates greatly between games. A full set of Ebony armor cost well over 180,000 Septims in Daggerfall if I'm not mistaken. Then it dropped down to a comparably measly amount in Oblivion.

That's called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation son

Well, the most logical and fair thing to do is compare the value of a certain Dwemer tool between games,

Let's see.... Morrowind... Ah:

Morrowind: 400,000 septims
Skyrim: 13 septims [/sarcasm]

Seriously though, I don't think the Devs put that much thought into the pricing for this game (it made more sense in Morrowind, but not much more... Price of potential Godhood? Around 1.2 million septims).

I don't think bread is a good basis for comparison. Skyrim is a harsh and cold land, there's not much vegetation and we can safely assume only the most resistant crops can be grown there. So bread will obviously be more expensive than in, say, Cyrodiil - or in Europe with its relatively fertile soils. Sure, grain can be imported, but with the war going on it's more difficult than ever.

Not to mention it's just a game and I doubt the devs delved into economy


Different province, 200 years ago... It's not surprising that the prices changed Shouldn't have happened between Daggerfall and Oblivion since it's only a couple of years, but still.

Actually, it's a very interesting topic. The prices should have gone sky high when the war started, but it's the exact opposite...

Wait what, Sunder is in Skyrim too?

The prices are skewed for the PC as some things are worth much more than they should be. Who would work for 5 drakes a day when you can find random crap that are worth 10 drakes?

Nah, just the one you get from old Arney, but both of the tools were worth the same in Morrowind.

Ah ok


Now that would be awesome, a dynamic economic system with different prices for each Hold. The very same armor piece is sold at the exactly same price by every merchants, it doesn't make too much sense to me. I wonder if they did so to prevent players making money by buying and selling goods across different merchants.

I like this one. At least the first sentence. I forget what, but hearsay tells me that you can measure the economy of a nation, or at least the lifestyle and cost of sustenance, by pricing a loaf of bread and a quart of milk.

More reliably, my economy professor told us to study the price changes in dollars per barrel. You know, petroleum. I suppose the closest Tamriel equivalent would be ...

soulgem? ebony? What drives a pre-electric(sorta) society? Wheat? Salt?

I thought this was what Skyrim offered, unless i missed something. O sigh, le weep

Gold does not seem very rare in Skyrim...

It would have been better. And if one wants to play as a merchant or trader, good for them.

Salt.

I'd say.. firewood?

I somehow doubt that the abundance and scarcity of items has, in general, any major effect on their price. Mammoth snouts should be difficult to obtain, yes? It's not like your average Nord can just waltz into a giant camp and hack the noses off their oversized cattle. And yet, mammoth snouts go for a measly six septims. Heck, a simple bowl of beef stew sells for eight. And why do hunters bother going through the trouble of tracking and skinning a deer if chopping two cords of wood is as profitable as selling its hide?