Ellish crown

The Ellish crown is the unit of currency used in Elland, a country in central Messenia; in writing it is shown as Cr., placed ahead of the figure, and in interordinate currency dealings by the standard currency code ELC. At the present time its value relative to other currencies is principally defined by its agreed exchange rate with the Savamese aurel through Elland’s associate status with the Savamese Customs Union; as of the most recent interordinate agreement, the exchange rate is SAA 1 = ELC 2.20. The crown is divided into twenty-four primary sub-units called fastes (written as f, placed after the figure); the faste is in turn broken into ten deniers (pronounced DEN-yer; written as d, placed after the figure, from Old Sabamic denarius). Overall responsibility for administration of the currency is held by a state-owned corporation, the Royal Bank of Elland HC (RBE), which is headquartered at 1 Little Spring Walk in the Marjoribank district of Etherley, the country’s capital. However, the government and the crown which gives the currency its name continue to exert substantial influence over the RBE, and have overridden its decisions on several occasions in the last two centuries.

The crown was brought into being as a unit of currency in 1481, as part of a number of reforms mounted by William I following his establishment of the modern Kingdom of Elland two years earlier; it replaced the separate coinage of his own principality of Middlechamp and the recently-conquered Salles. The currency of the latter had become significantly debased by the time of the unification, as the rulers of Salles had progressively reduced its silver content; while Middlechamp’s coinage was redeemed at par, Salles coin was exchanged only at a ratio of 2:1. The term itself was, however, not new; the currencies of several of the Ellish precursor states, including Middlechamp, Salles and Lythe, had been so denominated, in some cases at least as early as these states’ emergence as defined entities in the wake of the collapse of the Secote Empire in the twelfth century.

Coins and notes

Ellish crown coinage is manufactured at a central facility in Newfold, in central Elland, this having originally been moved from the Quernstone district of Etherley in 1867 amidst fears that the city could fall to invasion by Odann during the then-current Autumn War. The new mint was set up in a converted iron foundry close to Newfold town centre, but was moved to purpose-built premises in the district of Hood’s Bridge in 1973; it is not owned by the RBE itself, but by a wholly-owned subsidiary, Kingspiece HC. Notes are printed by the RBE on central presses at Austrey, south of Etherley. Both facilities also manufacture currency for Grand Fenwick, whose Fenwick crown is maintained at par to that of Elland.

As of Petrial 2021 there are coins in circulation for the values of 5d (“copper”), 1f, 3f, 6f (“silver”), 12f, Cr. 1 and Cr. 2 (“gold”), and banknotes valued at Cr. 5, Cr. 10, Cr. 20, Cr. 50, Cr. 100 and Cr. 200. Higher-value banknotes exist, but these are used only by the RBE for internal accounting purposes. The notes were subject to an extensive redesign process in 2013, which increased the size of some elements of text, including the numerals used to denominate them; while this was undertaken after advice that such a step would make the new notes easier to use for the partially-sighted, the move prompted criticism in some quarters that they “looked like a child’s play money”.

Controversies

One-crown coin

Although the one-crown denomination had been represented by a banknote only since 1925, plans announced in 1991 to withdraw it from circulation and replace it with a coin nonetheless met with substantial resistance from the general public. The proposal was readily defensible in logical terms – the typical lifespan of a coin is between forty and fifty years, against an average of just eighteen months for paper notes; however, the shift was seen widely as a tangible indication of the diminishing value of the crown and, in some quarters, even as an assault on a key symbol of Ellish identity. The outcry was enough to see the issue shelved at that time; however, the matter was brought back for consultation in 2005, by which time the inconvenience of dealing with large numbers of small-value notes had come to outweigh the earlier concerns. With much less resistance to encounter, the proposal was quickly brought into law, with the first new one-crown coins being struck from Animare 2006.

In keeping with the wildlife designs then being used on Ellish coinage, the new coin carried a picture of a mallard (the other side of the coin carrying the head of the monarch, currently Henry VI); this has, perhaps inevitably, seen the one-crown coin being nicknamed a “duck” – a common expression in Elland in recent years for someone who has no money has been “out of ducks and out of luck”. Further inflation in the following decade prompted proposals for a larger two-crown coin to be introduced, and this came into effect from Fabricad 2017. (Even before its issue, public comment dubbed the new coin “the goose” by analogy, but the RBE and the Ellish government have both denied that the subsequent use of this image was driven by this.)

Current copper coinage

The increasing cost of manufacturing coins created a position in which manufacture of the one-denier coin exceeded its actual value (figures made available by Kingspiece for 2016 give a cost of 1.38d per coin), and a debate has therefore developed as to whether the coin should be abandoned and those currently in circulation demonetised. A similar argument has taken place in several other countries which have been faced by this issue, and a submission to the Ellish treasury in 2014 referenced these, as well as the practice established in Siurskeyti and Helminthasse, among others, in which cash transactions are rounded to the nearest convenient figure (currently 50 pæsar in Helminthasse). Bank transactions and cheque payments are not rounded.

This option has mostly been seen as unacceptable by the Ellish public, largely because it removes the possibility for fine gradations of price (that same Helmin 50-pæsar coin is worth just under 1.4 fastes or 14 deniers at current rates of exchange, with one crown being valued at 8.67 kammar as at Fabricad 2017), although it should be noted that Grand Fenwick abandoned the one- and two-denier coins in 2014 and currently has the five-denier coin as the smallest in circulation. Against this have been ranged counter-arguments over the removal of denier coins from circulation (either melted down for their metal content, discarded in jars or scattered on desk tops). The Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Mondegreen, asked the treasury office to report on the matter before the end of 2018; this report, received in Nollonger, recommended the demonetisation of both the one- and two-denier coins, with till prices to be rounded to the nearest five deniers. Under the current timetable, minting of these coins ceased at the end of 2019; the one-denier coin was withdrawn from circulation at the end of 2020, with the two-denier coin to follow one year later.