Hammish Obol
| Hammish Obol | |
 A ten-obol note | |
| Denominations | |
|---|---|
| Symbol | Ø |
| Demographics | |
| Replaced | the Ham-mark |
| Replaced by | the Zenar |
| User(s) | Commonwealth of Hamland |
| Issuance | |
| Central bank | Commonwealth Central Bank |
This infobox shows the latest status before this currency was rendered obsolete. | |
The Hammish Obol (symbol Ø) was the currency of the Commonwealth of Hamland. It replaced the earlier Ham-mark on the reconstitution of the Kingdom of Hamland as the Commonwealth, and served as Hamland's denomination of the credit shared through the Small Commonwealth Unified Economy, the union on which the Commonwealth's economy rested.[1] The same credit was issued elsewhere under other names, as the Haifan Lliev of the Free State of Haifa and, later, the polis in the Pallisican sphere.
History
The obol succeeded the Ham-mark, the money of the Kingdom of Hamland, when the Kingdom was reformed into the federal Commonwealth of Hamland, and it served as the Commonwealth's money for the whole of that federation's life. It carried into the wider Commonwealth as the common currency of its constituent nations, from Hamland itself to Passas and the Region of the Isles, and remained the denomination in which the Commonwealth reckoned the shared credit for the remainder of its existence. The Free State of Haifa reckoned its own share of the credit in obols from its accession to the Commonwealth's economy until its dissolution in 1620 AN.
The Exchange and the credit
The obol was not a coin struck on its own account but Hamland's name for the base unit of the Small Commonwealth Unified Economy, the shared banking system its member states knew as the Exchange. Each member issued that credit under a name of its own, the obol in Hamland and the Lliev in the Free State of Haifa, each reckoned against the base credit rather than minted separately.[1] The money held no fixed worth. The credit rose and fell with the level of investment across the Exchange, so the value of an obol moved with the markets traded on the Ham50, the Hammish stock exchange, and held to no set rate. Hammish and Haifan firms alike were priced in obols; the Haifa Diamond Company, the largest concern of the Free State, opened at 2.40 obols a share, and the regional government led by Erlo Sinders took some 30 percent of the company, about 98 obols' worth, to stand as its principal shareholder.
Issuance and administration
Commonwealth monetary matters that fell outside the Small Commonwealth Unified Economy were governed by the Commonwealth Central Bank, formerly the Royal National Bank, together with the Ministry of the Coin, both seated in the Commonwealth capital of New Kirrie. The constituent nations of the Commonwealth were permitted to print their own designs of obol note, though only Passas did so. Notes were issued in several denominations, among them a ten-obol note.
Associated states of the Commonwealth kept no monetary authority of their own. The Free State of Haifa maintained no central bank; its share of the credit was administered through the finance ministry of Hamland, the office Erlo Sinders also held, rather than through any Haifan body. Benjamin Meir named this dependence on resigning the Haifan premiership in 1616 AN, when he said that Haifa had become to some a component of Hamland. On the Free State's dissolution in 1620 AN, the Commonwealth assigned it a reserve of 16,762.85 obols for immediate investment.[2]
Valuation and reform
How the obol should be valued was disputed within the Commonwealth. The Social Liberal Party favored a "real" economy of trade between citizens, while the Imperial Party favored a simulated one, and the two schools differed over the basis on which the currency should be reckoned.[3] The dispute brought a spell of national inactivity before it was settled in favor of the real-economy school, and the simulated-economy model was afterward taken up in Passio-Corum rather than in Hamland. Later reforms introduced a new currency, the Zenar, set to run alongside the obol, though the obol passed out of use with the Commonwealth itself and was no longer issued.
See also
References
- ^ a b Recorded in the Commonwealth's monetary arrangements under the Commonwealth Central Bank and its membership of the Small Commonwealth Unified Economy.
- ^ Agreement of Dissolution of the Free State of Haifa (1620 AN).
- ^ Recorded in the economic politics of the Commonwealth of Hamland, in the division between the real-economy and simulated-economy schools of its parties.
