Stone maybe? Bartering is always an option too.
I don't think stone can last 100 years of being used daily in trading. They would break in about 10-20 years. That's not mentioning wearing due to being handled.
How about a metal that "by chance" only the elves know and that is the one they use for their coins?
something fanciful like saying orichalcum or mithril, or a new material with properties that elves see as valuable
In the pre-Columbian era, the indigenous people used cocoa beans as currency due to its difficulty in obtaining it and that everyone wanted it.
Also If I remember correctly, I think that sea shells also had some value at that time
Considering this is a fantasy world, you can use a fantasy metal perhaps?
Or maybe have the elves grow their coins from trees? That sounds a bit stereotypical though. Not sure what kind of elves you have in your story.
Fantasy-invented metal is the last thing I will touch when I exhausted every other option. I generally do not want to be too inventive, since my current setting has rigid rules. Any addition to the setting may introduce loophole to the plot later on.
Aluminum? Titanium? Tungsten? Cobalt? Stainless Steel? Obsidian? Ironwood?
Since they're elves, maybe they just remember their debts and don't bother with currency. Every ten years they get together and decide where the money goes. Wait, do they even need money?
I checked some of those before I made this post. I am unsure those will not corrode in 50 years of sweating hand in daily transaction.
To be honest, the currency system in general doesn't work that great in fantasy worlds. I mean think how much of those materials would go into armor? And magic allows for getting materials much easier, plus there are mythical materials like mithril. Sure, you can use different materials or make up your own. But end of the day, the value of any currency has been backed by who issued it. And how do you stop them from being duplicated? Rune magic. Thus, things like how long they last is irrelevant if they have preservation magic on them.
My magic system is too hard to have such inventive usage that can trivialise the scarcity of materials.
If magic is a renewable resource in the world (or a lifeforce), I could see a material that acts as a container. The magic (whatever energy that might come in story-wise) preserves the container when full of magic, but the longer it holds it it consumes the energy. It is compliant towards the magic by absorbing it. That might also mean the material isn't malleable from alterations or equipped to be enchanted. It just sucks magic in and holds it in before running out of the energy (however long that takes) or until somebody intentionally draws it out for spells or whatever magical wonders that exist. Without magic, the material could degrade over time, but maybe magic restores it too? It'd be interesting to have this material sort of be an alternate form of life that has grown and adapted towards co-existing with magic in the world.
The "coinage" can be made of this material and the inhabitants of the world would know its worth by, maybe, glowing? Coins that light up when full of magic and are brighter (worth more) with higher quantities of magic in it.
That's a bit law-breaking for my setting. Magic in my world is not an interchangeable source of energy. Magic in my world is a phenomenon where the laws of physics are violated. Spell is a magic that performs a particular action. Mana is the currency to perform magic, and it can not interact with the physical work. If you mean we have to put mana into container and use it as potion, I will have to deal with the loophole of having a spell that can draw out or concentrate mana later on. However, that's a creative idea and one that is very inspiring from a historical aspect.
Make them "comrades" and have them use communal stuff or be very good at making stuff on their own.
Though this thread does arise the interesting question of how an intelligent species with long lifespans would go about creating a market economy in their society.
I'd just make them comrades. It makes sense, you know? After a long time, they would end up as one big prehistoric Al tribe-type of thing with magic, rather than a long-living version of us (I honestly don't believe that we are something that would come about in a society naturally, if not for some accidents and major fuck ups by previous people of history, so I take no notes from history).
Hmm. That's something I haven't thought about.
Nickel is an often forgotten coinage metal. Even the Romans had it.
Is it more corrosion-resistant than silver?
Magic Grass? And no. I'm not talking about those 'Magic Grass'.
I have no idea what you mean.
So, if I read this right, your reasoning for them not using copper or silver for coinage is because... it has industrial uses in their technology? Am I reading that right?
That shouldn't stop it from being used as currency. The original bronze-age currencies used were pressed tea leaves. Those were even more utilizable for human consumption than copper and silver, quite literally.
Even today, silver, gold, and copper all have technological uses but are also traded on the market for their metals and speculative values. And we have technological uses for gold as well.
I say go ahead and have the silver and copper used for coinage. You are over-complicating things by not using them, and they very much have the lastibility aspect you are looking for. (Just be sure to roughly balance the metals and monetary values of the coins. IRL, they started melting down pennies at several points in history because the metals value of copper was higher than the monetary value of a penny.)
Technological application is one thing. The other thing is copper and silver got tarnish too quick. I have only discovered that only gold and platinum would be able to last longer enough for my elves, but those are quite rare.
Furthermore, I think this is a good opportunity to question this subject. I mean knowledge and what-if scenarios are what make us humans.
