Narrativium: /* The Story So Far */ Corrected book reference to Going Postal

2022-04-22T01:59:03Z

The Story So Far: Corrected book reference to Going Postal

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:59, 22 April 2022
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	==The Story So Far==		==The Story So Far==

	The Ankh-Morpork Mint is named in [[Book:~~The Truth~~\|''~~The Truth~~'']] as an organisation in as much trouble as the [[Post Office]] was before [[Moist von Lipwig]] took over. [[Reacher Gilt]] had a chance of freedom while re-organising it, but he chose the wrong door. More was expected about the Mint in 2007's [[Book:Making Money\|''Making Money'']].		The Ankh-Morpork Mint is named in [[Book:Going Postal\|''Going Postal'']] as an organisation in as much trouble as the [[Post Office]] was before [[Moist von Lipwig]] took over. [[Reacher Gilt]] had a chance of freedom while re-organising it, but he chose the wrong door. More was expected about the Mint in 2007's [[Book:Making Money\|''Making Money'']].

	==The Building==		==The Building==

EinFritz: /* The Story So Far */

2013-10-01T15:38:47Z

The Story So Far

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:38, 1 October 2013
Line 1:		Line 1:
	==The Story So Far==		==The Story So Far==

	The Ankh-Morpork Mint is named in [[Book: The Truth\|''The Truth'']] as an organisation in as much trouble as the [[Post Office]] was before [[Moist von Lipwig]] took over. [[Reacher Gilt]] had a chance of freedom while re-organising it, but he chose the wrong door. More was expected about the Mint in 2007's [[Book:Making Money\|''Making Money'']].		The Ankh-Morpork Mint is named in [[Book:The Truth\|''The Truth'']] as an organisation in as much trouble as the [[Post Office]] was before [[Moist von Lipwig]] took over. [[Reacher Gilt]] had a chance of freedom while re-organising it, but he chose the wrong door. More was expected about the Mint in 2007's [[Book:Making Money\|''Making Money'']].

	==The Building==		==The Building==

User: 1 revision: Discworld import

2012-09-23T21:51:25Z

1 revision: Discworld import

New page

==The Story So Far==

The Ankh-Morpork Mint is named in [[Book: The Truth|''The Truth'']] as an organisation in as much trouble as the [[Post Office]] was before [[Moist von Lipwig]] took over. [[Reacher Gilt]] had a chance of freedom while re-organising it, but he chose the wrong door. More was expected about the Mint in 2007's [[Book:Making Money|''Making Money'']].

==The Building==

Physically, the Mint takes the form of quite possibly the ugliest building never to have won a [[Guild of Architects|major architectural award]]. It is described as a gaunt brick and stone block, its windows high, small, many and barred, its doors protected by portcullises, its entire construction saying to the world: '''''Don't Even Think About It'''''. Sticking out of its roof, giving the impression of a coin half-inserted into a very large piggy bank, is the [[Bad Penny]].

On the inside, the "factory floor" is surreally composed of randomly built ramshackle wooden sheds, which are the preserve of the [[Men of the Sheds]].

==The Reformation==

A hint of the future may be gleaned from the [[Patrician]]'s satisfaction at [[Moist von Lipwig]]'s achievement at the [[Post Office]]. For the Mint has a problem: the [[currency]] it makes in various combinations of metal is costing too much. For instance, the cost of making [[Elim|one small coin]] is nearly two hundred times the face value of that coin. Multiply this by several tens of thousands, and the Mint itself can be seen to be one enormous drain on...well, the Mint. Obviously this state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue for much longer - or as [[Vetinari]] phrases it - "[[no great rush]], 'do' take your time".

Moist, in introducing stamps to pay for the cost of a letter, has inadvertently created a crude but serviceable form of paper [[currency]] (described by [[Mavolio Bent]] as '''''the revolutionary unsecured one-penny note''''') which passes all the standard economic tests: ie, it represents the full economic value of the service provided and may be exchanged for an equivalent value of goods. And, crucially, people have now been conditioned by Moist to believe a piece of paper does have a monetary worth, far beyond that of the paper it's printed on.

It is not a long step from ''a dollar stamp, redeemed at any time, will buy you a dollar's worth of postage, backed by our absolute promise to deliver'' to a more universal ''I promise to pay the bearer on demand''. If people believe a piece of paper is worth its face value in gold, and everyone confidently participates in the illusion, then we have a [[Paper Money|paper-based currency]].

Which is just as well. Reflect on what has been unkindly (but maybe accurately) said about the [[Ankh-Morpork]] dollar: that it contains less gold than an equivalent volume of seawater. Such a state cannot go on indefinitely in any economy. People might lose confidence, which, in the last chapters of {{GP}}, we see is the trick of managing an economy.

==Annotation==

What was it that [[Reacher Gilt]] said, among others (cf Roundworld satirical writer [[wikipedia:Robert_Anton_Wilson|Robert Anton Wilson]])

...'''''Reality is what you can get away with.'''''

Which, when you think about it, explains paper money. Otherwise, why else would a farty bit of paper with some (generally ridiculous) squiggly lines on it actually be worth the equivalent in commodities? Swapping $20-worth of beer for a piece of paper with "$20" written on it seems ridiculous - and in fact ''is'' ridiculous unless the whole community buys in to it.

Hence the [[wikipedia:Goon_Show|Goon Show]] joke (for our non-English readers, the Goon Show was a ground-breaking radio show in the 1950s, '60s and '70s which operated on the outer edges of the realms of the possible, and to whom all subsequent "alternative" comedy owes a huge debt - one that TP himself readily acknowledges):

Shopkeeper: "That'll be £3.50."

Customer: "OK - here's a photograph of a £5-note."

Shopkeeper: "Thanks. Here's a drawing of £1.50 change!"

Which is both a very clever social comment on the perception of values (why should a photograph of a $5 note be less valuable than the note itself?) and a relatively funny joke in its own right.

For an example of how a whole community might buy into an idea and give it collective legitimacy, consider the case of [[wikipedia:Emperor_Norton|Emperor Norton]].

In most societies, a patently insane person proclaiming himself Emperor of the United States would either be sectioned, or ignored and left to wander the streets ranting and raving. There must be something in the air in San Francisco, as the populace fell in with the joke and humoured him, to the extent that the currency issued by His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I was honoured - even by the banks - as if it were real. Which of course, in San Francisco at that time, it was as everyone colluded to treat it as such. Reality ''really is'' what you get away with - and what other people are prepared to treat as real.

[[Category:Ankh-Morpork Businesses|Mint]]
[[de:Königliches Münzamt]]

Ankh-Morpork Mint - Revision history

Narrativium: /* The Story So Far */ Corrected book reference to Going Postal

EinFritz: /* The Story So Far */

User: 1 revision: Discworld import