Ye Pirate Brethren

For a writing project I'm working on, for which I posted another question on the ships board, I'm trying to figure out an appropriate amount of Spanish doubloons a character would be paid for a big job in 1721 by the Spanish government (big as in having the potential to change the balance of power in Europe). Is 50,000 Spanish doubloons a reasonable offer for a REALLY big job in 1721? If not, is it too much or not all that much money for the day? (I can't go into more detail about what the money is for, as I don't want to spoil anything).

Also, how much would that be worth in British currency at the time?

Thanks! I appreciate it!

Well, when you consider "the basic gold coin was the eight escudo piece, often called a doubloon. In 1537 eight escudos was set at 27.4680 grams of .92 fine gold (22-carat gold). In 1728 the weight was reduced to 27.06429 grams", 50000 doubloons would be one helluvalot of gold.

http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoin ... intro.html

27.468 grams is 0.96890518683 ounces.

IF we assume the buying power of gold is roughly the same today as back then, call it $1000 an ounce, that's about 50000 one ounce coins, or $50,000,000.

Cha-chinge!

That being said, I don't know that the price of gold is the same. I would expect it is really much less per ounce in the 17teens.

On the second page of this pdf there are some conversions from doubloons to pounds.
http://www.w3r-us.org/library/seligreptde6.pdf

Thanks. Should I scale back the number of doubloons this guy's getting paid, then? Maybe 10,000? (It's a pretty big job)

From what I recall John Law was the first millionaire. That was in 1720, as I recall. I would make sure whatever the price was it wasn't anywhere near the equivalent of a millionaire in 1720 doubloons.