You obviously don’t know that, but not only have other materials besides gold been used as money in different cultures and times, gold itself has often been regarded not as your property. In the Inca Empire, all gold belonged to the sun god= the Inca, because it was yellow like the sun. (A jeweler or similar artist would be compensated for his work, like a miner, but not for the metal itself).
And in ancient egypt, while gold was valued for making nice things - a major use for gold during centuries, because of its softness - Elektrum was prized much more, because it was harder and thus better suited for making weapons with.
So in some time periods, a bag of gold is worth nothing (in some areas, yellow gold was worth less than reddish gold, depending on the decree of the local king or the preferences of the traders), or it will be taken away from you because you aren’t allowed to own it. And in some time periods, lots of other stuff would be worth more.
As you don’t seem to know any history, you have missed that indians weren’t savages. It’s more likely - depending on local circumstances* - that the Indian tribe would take you in and feed you for free under the law of hospitality, while in the next western town, you can starve or be shot and robbed.
Obviously, if a group of whites had just committed a massacer against women and children, a group of the army broken a treaty again, a promised delivery been misplaced or similar injustices riled up the Indians, it would be a unsafe place to stay; but generally, as long as you didn’t run around shooting people or being a jerk, I would take my chances with the Indians over the whites of that time any day.
Does it come with an invisble force field against spears and arrows, too? And how long can you as single person keep up running away compared to a band of people giving chase?
Introducing an anachronistic horse breed messes not only history up, it can also mark you (together with the clothes, lack of language and manners) as demon or similar.
If you want to go into a big city where people know about foreign countries instead of the countryside with superstitious yokels, then you need food for the horse, it can’t eat the cobbles, and a stable to sleep in. And you can’t ride away from trouble through a crowd of people, you’ll get stuck and then pulled down.
It’s incredibly easy to be hostile unintentionally by not knowing local customs, by showing lack of respect to the local king/ lord/ god, and not speaking the local language makes matters worse.
Yes, there were foreign merchants around with funny clothes - but they either had a native guide and interpreter, or had been there before and picked up enough of local customs to survive, and spoke some version of the lingua franca.
You don’t hear about all the foreigners who died when they ran into trouble.
While i agree that there’s no guarantee that the Indians would harm or kill a stranger, i have my doubts that there would have been any shooting or army massacres in the period around 1200 CE.
If you (the OP) wish to visit 1930’s Germany, get there just before the inflation during the Weimar republic, but bring plenty of those trash Marks that were printed during it. They rapidly became trash, but if you buy yours now, they should be useful (and quite lucrativily cheap), if you choose your dates correctly. The same scheme is useful, just before any historical hyperinflation. Time travellers, Plan Ahead!!!
Rome - An archaeologist has discovered evidence of ancient technology in the catacombs beneath the city. “Yes, it’s amazing. I have here a Latin Vulgate Bible that was found in a 4th century crypt. When we analyzed the ink, we found that it’s composition is nothing like the inks used in Europe during that time, but most strongly resembles toner from a 20th or 21st century laser printer or photocopier.”
That you always use the word ‘gold’ in caps and boldfaced comes across as a bit creepy. No matter.
I take issue with your labeling my comments as off topic. The issue is “what do I use for money.” These problems that I’ve mentioned clearly demonstrate why gold is not a good choice. Er, your religious fervour notwithstanding.
From all the replies listed so far, only a very few like or would want, or probably already own GOLD, and most of the rest of the respondents seem to place value in worms, pencils, needles, tulips, pigs, etc.
And frankly, I dont really care if I am the only one who likes, and who owns a lot of** GOLD**.
For ancient Egypt - gold (or should that be GOLD), silver and those gems that can be cheaply synthesised today and were valuable then (rubies, sapphires).
For Cahokia, if you don’t want to leave anything anachronistic, I’d recommend either small ingots or sheets of pure copper, tobacco, and whelk shells. Oh, and learn to play Chunkey and proto-lacrosse, betting on those games was huge, but only participants wagered AFAIK.
For Prague, again, gold, silver and gems.
Dyes and pigmentswill also be very valuable anywhere, any time before, say, 1800, especially deep reds and purples. If you want to be fussy, only take the ones that are more cheaply synthesised today but have expensive period natural sources too, like carmine. But if you don’t care about that, you’d be in a better position as far as colour choices and lightfastness. And dye powders don’t weigh a lot.
In Nigeria, the hard part would be getting that gold out of the country. You could, however, get on the internet and find someone who would be willing to help you move that gold out of country for a share of the proceeds…
Gold would be the standard. I recal someone mentioning why sailors (and other travellers) wore all those gold earrings and rings, chains, and othe jewelry. They could sell of a ring or a few links of chain whenever they were in a strange place. earrings and especially chains worn under the shirt would be a it more tricky to steal. An asortment of plain gold accessories is your best bet, and probably attracts the least curiosity.
I’ve never heard of sailors wearing a lot of jewelery besides one golden earring. After all, although OSHA didn’t exist, the danger from rings and chains during heavy work catching on something was real.
The gold earring was for one special case: if you fell overboard and washed ashore somewhere, a golden earring was supposed to pay for a proper Christian burial, because the people living in a poor town would otherwise not bother putting out money for a stranger.
The usual reason why wives/ women liked jewelry was indeed the possibility of selling parts of it, but that was based largely in the laws when women were not allowed to own other possesions without consent, whereas chains and other stuff belonged her.
With the change in laws in the 20th century, women invest their money in houses, fonds and cash instead of diamonds and gold necklaces.
The OP’s question is not “What do *you *value?” but, effectively, “What will the people where I’m going value? That is, what would be something that
a) I could easily carry and would keep,
b) could easily be traded for things I’ll need,
c) would not attract unwelcome attention to me,
d) would be worth quite a lot where/when I’m traveling,
e) is not worth all that much here and now, and
f) would not mess with the time continuum.”
Gold fails (e) generally and, as discussed above, would fail (c) in many place/times, and would even fail (b), (d), and (f) in some place/times. You could maybe argue that it would be better in more place/times than any other single alternative, though.
Looking up the GOLD price per oz. for a known date of 1934 when the GOLD Reserve Act set the price to $35, and then checking the inflation rate for that year which would be 1541.5%, and ounce of GOLD would cost you $574.35 in today’s dollar. Looks like about a 3:1 loss in taking GOLD back to 1934. YMMV.
Thanks for the ideas. Trip went great, other than using more ammo than expected. Those folks at Cahokia have a weak immune system and weren’t doing well when I left. I accidentally burned down the library at Alexendria. And Mozart has terrible BO but was really impressed with my iPod. And it turns out you don’t really need much money if you don’t stay long.
