Coinage is a luxury, employed primarily by the merchant and noble classes. Many smallfolk simply engage in barter. This is slowly changing, especially in major urban centres like King’s Landing, Oldtown, or White Harbour where coppers and silvers are used daily.

The system of coinage used in the Seven Kingdoms is established by the king’s master of coin, with official weights and compositions decreed for each coin. Bandits and crooked merchants sometimes attempt to shave the coins thin, so they may craft new coins from the edges of old ones. Keen-eyed merchants are old hands at spotting these clipped coins, and will charge higher rates to accept such dubious looking currency. There are also some items of such low value that they can be purchased with no more than a clipped copper.

The exchange rate given in Table: Currency Exchange represents a general standard rather than a fixed rate of transfer. The value of any given coin is based on the relative availability of the metals, the official minted size of the coin, and the perceived value of the metal. For example, if a new, abundant vein of gold was to be discovered and gold became more common, the value of the dragon would decrease significantly in relation to other coins.

Coppers and silver stags are the standard coinage used by most of the Seven Kingdoms. For the nobility, however, gold dragons flow more freely. A knight captured in war may fetch a ransom of a few hundred gold dragons; purses of as much as 40,000 gold dragons can be awarded in tournaments.