Trade Bars
I have used trade bars in my campaigns for years. Moving mass amounts of coins just is not practical (purely from the weight standpoint), and it also creates role-play opportunities when players try to cash in the bars at remote locations. I also find them historically accurate (as you will see below) and while I currently use the DMG Page 20 standard below, Kobold Press has a really interesting article on this subject as well.
A 2-pound silver bar is worth 10 gp and is about 5 inches long, 2 inches wide, and 1/ 2 inch thick.
A 5-pound silver bar is worth 25 gp and is about 6 inches long, 2 inches wide, and 1 inch thick.
A 5-pound gold bar is worth 250 gp and is about the size of a 2-pound silver bar.
All this leads us to a resent historical discovery of a 1,000-year-old stash of Viking Age ironwork was recently discovered in a family's basement in Norway. The hoard, which had been sitting there for 40 years, consists of 32 identical iron ingots weighing 1.8 ounces each, prompting experts to believe they were used as a form of currency. Each ingot is pierced with a hole, suggesting they were meant to be tied together in a bunch. Archaeologists believe someone buried the hoard with the intention of coming back for it later.
The iron collection was found by Grete Margot Sørum while clearing out her parents' basement in Valdres, central Norway. Sørum's father had discovered the ingots while digging a well in the 1980s but put them away in a corner. The stash is now stored at the Cultural History Museum in Oslo, where archeologists will study and catalog the artifacts to provide new knowledge about the history of the inland. This discovery is rare as construction projects often destroy or damage buried treasures, making it a valuable addition to the museum's collections.
