Mundane goldsmith pricing question

Hi guys,
I know that C&G created labour points to get around most of the book keeping involved in crafting and selling mundane stuff.

My craftsman has Com +1, Bargain 4, Goldsmith +9.
His wife has Bargain 5, Com +2, Pre +2 and Venus Blessing

I need a general answer of what people feel is "right" for what he can sell his craft items for - just as a general percentage of what the raw gold is worth.
I know that individual cases will vary depending on difficulty, but overall what is his average? I think around 2.5 times the price of the gold. But is this too low or too high?

a dozen bracelets and rings weighing 1lb of gold selling for 25lb silver.
some gold and silver goblets weighing (gold 0.5lb, silver 2lb) selling for around 17.5lb silver

This sort of thing. Any ideas?

(I know, I should just go to bed instead of rambling in the early hours of the morning :laughing: )

Considering:

  1. How Ars magica is abstracting the concept of money,
  2. That people had a rather different way of perceiving wealth and the notion of savings (= hoarding money) and the sin of greed,
    I don't think there is a right answer to your question.
    For a general discussion on price of things, I would refer to this Discussion on medieval prices, which also highlight how difficult it is to have a "right" price.

Second, I would suggest the reading of "City and Guilds" as it tackles wealth, social classes and how it is abstracted within the Mythic Europe paradigm. This should help you see where your couple of skilled craftsman and shrewed sellslady fit in the social classes. Unless they have special virtue, they are just in the "average" segment. However, with their good skills they might be able to "ascend" to a higher class. This is covered in City & Guild with the mechanic of labor points as you pointed out yourself. I honestly find it too detailed and complicated for the kind of stories I like to tell, but it might point you in the right direction.

Since you did not find the answer you were looking in C&G, maybe it is because you are not asking the right question and should rephrase it?
Why is it relevant to you how much they can sell their good, and what is their margin/benefits ? It is because you have a goal in mind for them. Thus a story you would like to tell ?

If it is about social climbing, it is covered by labor point. If it is about buying/getting something, you can also abstract it with the concept of social standing: they want a better house, a larger property ? They need to become "Wealthy" and we go back to the labor point system. They want to become head of guild, again climbing the social ladder, with some story telling in it. C&G rules give a kind of scale of difficulty on how easy/tricky it is to change classes - how long, it takes, what kind of compromise you have to make (like getting the "Miser" reputation for trying to maximise you time and profit - which is strange to us, but reflects perception in Mythic Europe paradigm).

They want to acquire something extraordinary like a magical item or a longevity potion ? then it is not only about wealth, it is about having the right contacts, getting favors - this is the kind of material that SG likes to hear about, because they can spin a story for you - especially that those who can manufacture such items are rarely interested in pure mudane wealth: they might value a season or a year of secret work from a skilled craftsman more than just a few pieces of exquisit jewlery, or maybe a favour to be called later.
As a SG, when I had to deal with a wealthy PC merchant it was never about how much coins he had, but more what he wanted to do: become a patron of an orphanage to be invited in certain circles for example. He never asked me how many healing poultices a month his alchemist guild was selling, he just knew he was wealthy and could use his wealth as a tool, whereas other PCs had to rely on skills and wit.

The answer can vary immensely depending on what, where, when, to whom. The buyer; the reputation of the artisan; the amount of work that went into the crafting; guild dues and regulations; taxes; etc. etc. all have an impact. 1 pound of worked silver can be sold for anything from 1 pound of unworked silver to 100 pounds of unworked silver, possibly more. Gold makes things even more uncertain, since in 1220 gold is not a "currency metal". It's a little like asking: how many loaves of bread can a person afford on his daily income in 2017 -- does 10 seem about right?

If you are interested in this quantity because you want to use it to estimate another quantity (like how much money the goldsmith is making, how much he needs to invest to start up his business, how much a bunch of thieves is likely to make from raiding his shop etc.) there are almost certainly better ways to get to that.

Looking at City & Gild - page 68's seasonal production chart suggests someone with Craft Goldsmith 5 can make 15 silver bracelets per season, so your goldsmith will make 27 per season.

Your goldsmith will count as either a Minor income of £20/year (a single workshop crafting expensive items - if he has craftsman as a social status virtue) or maybe Lesser £40/year (A guild master who regularly produces superior quality items, if he has a Guild Master or Senior Master virtue). His work in Labour points will be 9*3 or 27/season, so this neatly means 1 labour point works out as 1 silver bracelet for a goldsmith.

"Money and Investment" on page 40 of C&G says 6 labour points are worth around 5 pounds to a character with a minor source of income, or 10 to someone with a minor source of income. Therefore, his bracelets should sell for (Material cost) + 5/6 of a mythic pound for a normal goldsmith or 10/6 of a mythic pound for a well-known Master. Material cost will be the weight of metal multiplied by the actual percentage of silver in it (90% plus for high quality silver, much less for cheap silver), or roughly ten times the weight of gold as C&G assumes gold is roughly 10 times as valuable as silver on average. Gemstones can easily add a few pounds for materials.

(If you just needed to work out income, that bit on page 40 was probably all you needed).

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Thanks Darkwing. That is really helpful.

We are used to a lot of competition in this day and age, and the free movement of goods and most items being commodities. That just was not true in Mythic Europe, there is not a hole lot of buyers and not a whole lot of sellers. You are assuming that the only relavent information is how skilled the goldsmith is and how good he is at bargaining. The other question is how rich the customers are and how skilled they are at bargaining. It is not as if you have an unlimited number of possible customers, you have a few who want something like this at this point and how good they are at bargaining will vary and your profits would as well.

In fact that was not true in Real Medieval Europe. In Mythic Europe I can see that honest, rightful goldsmith with his two bigger customers, always prone to buy his new works, being a False God wich is paying with his Wealt of Nations power while trying to corrupt the goldsmith, and a Faerie, paying in Glamour for the pleasure and the vitality of bargaining with the wife (...and faeries and wifes with Venus Blessing are ticking bombs).