You ever stop to ponder that, as you're carrying, say, 50,000 gold pieces around, how much that would weigh, and how much space it would take up? I mean, if each gold coin weighed, I dunno, 1/2 ounce, you'd be looking about about 1,560 *pounds* of gold you're lugging around, and if you spllit it into bags or other containers, each carrying 500 gold pieces, you'd have 100 such containers on your person.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad it doesn't count towards encumbrance, especially since there's no banking system in Tamriel, but from time to time, when I start to accumulate a lot of gold in a TES game, I start to think about the weight issue.

Unless you have a magic bag of Weightlessness like me

Gold ingots the size of the ones in the game would weigh about 60 lbs. each.

This is an example where too much realism would be a bad thing.

There was a time, long ago, when gold did have weight in TES. Apparently, someone, somewhere, didn't think it was 'fun' gameplay to not be able to haul around all those coins and need banknotes in order to amass great wealth. For 1 thing, it did make Gems and Jewelry more important than just decoration and vessels for enchanting. In fact, jewelry was used like this in many ancient cultures - a means to carry (and show off) your wealth without carrying a pouch of coins around.

I remember playing a game - no idea what, it was long long ago - in which coins had weight.

Dropping a bunch of cash svcked sometimes . . . .

For those who enjoy a bit of realism, a banking system is not such a bad idea... as long as you don't lose your stone-credit card.

Daggerfall had gold with weight: it came with two problems,
gold was heavy. 0.1 for each coin so 3000 coins would weight 300, probably your carry limit.

Now anything elven or better had an better cost / weight value than gold, so you had an drop gold button you would get very familiar with, this let you drop gold so you could carry more loot.
Now both in modern time and historically gold has been very valuable. current gold price is 54$/ gram, 20 Kg gold is worth over an million dollar, yes it's serious money and no issue to carry enough money to buy an good house, you could not do that in Daggerfall it was as they only had copper coins and no other options except letters of credit.

Now it could work if they had additional currencies add gold and silver to the copper coins, however this would increased complexity in a game settings where they removed pants to avoid confusing players with unfamiliar concepts )

yes, i am always confused by pants, i never seem to understand them on the bright side, we lost pants but every. single. person. wears a skirt to battle, like a true son/daughter of skyrim

on topic: my character usually carries the equlivent of a small child in his coin pouch, i assume he would rather be poor at this point

I do consider it, albeit a minor encumberance, and usually stash gold at my current living quarters -- usually I assume 10,000 gold coins = 100 pounds of weight.

I adjust accordingly but it definitely isn't one of the role-play elements I invest heavily into taking seriously.

Well, in Daggerfall you could cash in coins at a bank and take a letter of credit, iirc, that way you could still buy expensive stuff from shopkeepers, etc. I can't remember exactly how that worked, but I know the houses were purchased through Banks, so you'd have the money stashed there anyway.

Also, jewelry and gems could be carried for extra wealth, as I believe the more valuable gems, etc. had a higher value to weight ratio than gold.

But you are right; in an RPG that considers having separate pants and shirt/briastplate pieces for clothes and armor, etc. "too complex" for the average player, then this is the last thing they were worried about. I guess taking out Pauldrons, spears, crossbows and Ability Scores wasn't enough 'simplification' for the target audience...

If each gold piece weighed a gram you would be carrying 50 kilos.

I wish you could drop gold for decorating your house. Individual coins and in the cool little pouches.

If they made it real, 1kg of gold would buy you a cheap house. Probably a lot more if you go by medieval pricing.

Back in the glory days of DOS programs in CGA, EGA or even VGA and those for specific video cards, there was a dungeon game called Moraff's World. Sometimes called Moraff's Dungeons or Dungeons of the Unforgiven. Anywho, everything had weight, and from time to time you'd get a message like, "You're really carrying too much. You should visit a town and unload some things." That included a trip to the bank to deposit the copper, silver and gold you had acquired.

In Skyrim, where gold is far more common than dirt, inflation keeps it buoyant and therefore weightless.

During World War II, a tremendous amount of freight was moved across the US by the railroads. Every car and locomotive was pressed into service. Out west the challenge was getting across the mountains. The Navy was using blimps filled with helium, and that helium was shipped by rail on specially constructed tank cars. The story is that a train heading for the mountains in the southwestern US couldn't make the grade, but there were no more locomotives available, and doubling the train (taking it in two sections) would take too long. So the trainmaster had a brainwave, and attached a string of helium cars to the end of the train. With them it was able to climb the mountain pass with ease. Now, those of you with a smattering of physics knows this is pure bullonium, but it still makes for an amusing anecdote!

Couldnt find any videos of it online, so imagine Homer Simpson saying "I have misplaced my pants."

Based on some quick research, a Spanish dubloon weighed 6.77 to 8.3771 grams, depending on the type. Not too different from a Roman aureus, which went from 8 down to 6.5 as time went on. And the solidus was 5.5. There's about 28.35 grams to the ounce.

Somewhere, I have a coin that I think looks like it might be Roman.

TES world is a magical world.

They have a special card, everytime you pick up a coin, the coin will magically disappear, but the value will be counted into your special card.
everytime you do biz with any npc, the cost will be deduct from your special card magically.

so, you get it?

now.... where I placed my VISA card?...

There are several ideas for Mods out, which are making coins with weight. So you have to leave a lot of gold in your house (or using magic bags ). Many people are thinking that gold should be weighted or improved. And I think there will be in future a bank in Skyrim (like the Bank of Cyrodil which I use din Oblivion).
There are lots of Mods which have to do with gold. Here are some examples:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=650
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=11701
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=2262

I would like to use a Mod with weighted gold, but not until a Bank is made...


Edit: @kelmen: You placed your VISa Card in the Bank of Cyrodiil...

The value of gold doesn't make any sense either; the game routinely has you spending multiple gold coins to buy an apple or an ale. In practice, you'd get a bunch of those for a copper.

Nevertheless, I consider the quantity of 'gold coins' you're carrying to be an abstraction. Most of it probably represents promissory notes and/or other valuable but more portable forms of wealth.

Some other games represented higher-denomination cash values as various types of gems, but those games didn't also make a gem function as an alchemy reagent/etc like TES does, so it was a feasible option. (Nor did you take a huge % loss when spending them to buy things from merchants - they were just a higher value of coin.)