Ring Pulls

From Wild Southwest Wiki

Ring Pulls or 'Rings' from aluminium cans are the standard currency of the Southwest.

These pre-war items – recovered from land fills and garbage heaps – fulfill many of the basic requirements for a functional unit of currency.

Scarcity: Rings are rare, but not vanishingly so. There are tens of thousands of rings in circulation, but not millions. As such they are a convenient medium of exchange with a natural limit on inflation.

Rarity: Aluminium is rare. The technology to refine aluminium was lost in the Great War, and only very limited supplies of the metal are available for recovery. Thus it is uneconomic to manufacture new Rings from what metal is available, as any Rings so manufactured would be worth less (when labour costs are factored in) than those already in circulation.

Convenience: Rings are small, light, and easily recognizable. Their design makes them easy to thread onto strings or wires to make up large denominations.

The dollar sign ($) is still used to represent Rings, although the word 'dollar' is remembered by almost no one. 'Buck' is still in wide use to represent one Ring.

Wear and tear results in a certain number of Rings being lost or broken each year, however these are replaced at around the same rate by new ones being brought out of the Radlands. In the past some legendary Scavs have become fantastically wealthy by stumbling onto beer and soft drink factories. No major finds have been made in the last few decades however and most Scavs are of the opinion that all the great hordes have long been discovered and plundered.

In terms of buying power one Ring is roughly equivalent to two pre-war Australian dollars.

Small Amounts

The Ring is the smallest unit of currency available in the Southwest, however small items are often sold for less than one Ring. In this case it is usual to buy more than one item, or to haggle over the difference. Small items such as screws, nails or percussion caps are also often used as fractional currency, usually at a rate of about five to one Ring.

Bullets or shotgun shells are also often used as an alternative currency. One jacketed bullet or shotgun shell can usually be considered to be worth half a Ring in trade.

Large Amounts

Purchases of more than fifty Rings are usually made in Scrip rather than with Rings.