Barra

Barra
Denominations
Subunit
​1⁄10	Pàirtbarra
Plural	Barrann
Symbol	฿/Br.
Banknotes
Freq. used	฿1, ฿5, ฿15, ฿60, ฿300
Rarely used	฿30
Coins
Freq. used	฿.1, ฿.5, ฿1, ฿5
Rarely used	฿.05, ฿15
Demographics
Date of introduction	1832
Official user(s)	Faneria
Unofficial user(s)	Parts of Fiannria Parts of Caergwynn (until 2012)
Issuance
Central bank	National Mint (Office of the Treasury)

The Barra (plural: Barrann), or Measure in Aenglish is the primary legal currency of Faneria. It was established in 1832 after the first Fhainnin Constitution as a replacement for Corinn (Crowns) and as a method of centralizing banking and minting under the monarchy's control. It remained the legal currency throughout the Fhainnin Civil War and remains the legal tender of Faneria to the present day with several modifications, including the addition of a decimal system in 1873 and the alteration of legal denominations in 1911 to alter the denominations printed. Its monetary symbol is '฿', however, it is more commonly notated as 'Br'; the international currency code used for it is BAR.

Under Rih ---------, a series of civil reforms were undertaken in legal, financial, and administrative fields to improve the Throne's ability to tax, census, and manage the Kingdom of the Fhainn, which had greatly expanded in the 18th Century following the Tundra Wars, First, Second, and Third Kin Wars, and the Saelish Partition. After the establishment of the Royal Constitution, ------ worked on revisions of the administrative dialect of Fhasen and the system of measurements used commonly, consolidating a number of historic measurements into a single organized set. The last major reform was the currency, which was entirely replaced with the first iteration of the Barra. In this form, the Barra was a nondecimal form of currency with twelfth-Barra and sixth-Barra coins and bills in denominations of one, two, three, five, six, ten, twelve, twenty, twenty-four, fourty, fourty-eight, sixty, and eighty. As a result, bill usage in the new system was incredibly difficult between the only semi-coherent mix of base 10 and base 12 systems, which was originally proposed as a method of consolidating local monetary systems set in base 12 more easily on a 1:1 exchange rate - an idea which proved unnecessary anyways, marring the Barra's foundation as the weakest of the reforms of the 1830s in its early days. This would quickly be reduced to bill denominations of one, five, fifteen, sixty, and one hundred-twenty in 1833; the ฿120 bill was replaced with a ฿300 bill in 1837. Early production denominations became highly-sought collectors' items after their short printing runs. Other denominations such as the ฿50 and ฿90 bills were never legal tender but commonly printed by launderers at the time due to a disinformation campaign launched by the Throneswatch to crack down on printing operations during the centralization of minting that took place concurrently with the wider financial reforms.

The next major alteration to the currency system came in 1873, with Rih ----- undertaking a reform to a mostly decimal system, with denominations of one-twentieth, one-tenth, half, and one-Barra coins and bill denominations of five, fifteen, thirty, sixty, and three hundred. Other coins for quarter-Barra, three quarters-Barra, and fifteen Barra were considered but only issued as collectors' items, while five-Barra coins were introduced as an uncommon but well-known variation until 1907. This system remained in place until the Fhainnin Civil War, where a 1-5-10-50-100 denomination set of bills was briefly used as a provisional currency by the Fhainnin Popular Republic prior to a return to the previous format.

During the Cold War, the .05 coin exited production but remained in circulation both as a method of skimming additional sales tax income for the state and reflecting inflation realities. The iconography of the currency was altered significantly, shifting from complex royal filigree to a more simplistic modernist look. In the 1980s, the currency was updated to a polymer material and began to include a reflective security strip along with a more colorful modernist design inspired by the Dealbhtaigh style and new imagery to reflect more recent history; this design change remains to this day with minor alterations and the inclusion of a microchip on the ฿300 bill for tracking and fraud protection purposes.

The Barra was originally a gold-backed currency and was moved to a silver backing in 1997 to allow the Fhainnin government to sell of gold stock to repay its remaining war debt - a controversial move which tied in with the tail-end of reforms by then-Director Gwyn Feawyr to solidify earlier anti-corruption campaigns performed during her tenure as Taesteach.

Denominations

Coins

Current coin denominations of the Barra are limited to .1, .5, 1, and 5-Barra denominations, with the former two being referred to as Pàirtbarra (one Pàirtbarra being a tenth of a Barra, the .05 coin being a half-Pàirtbarra, etc.). .05 and other variants exist but are out of production, and only the .05 is accepted as legal tender out of the removed coinage as of 2019 but has all but dropped out of use due to a century of attrition without replenishment.

Denomination	Face	Reverse	Description
฿0.1 (One Pàirtbarra)			Seal of the Republic on the Reverse,
฿0.5 (Five Pàirtbarra)			Seal of the Republic on the Reverse,
฿1 (One Barra)			Seal of the Republic on the Reverse, Provincial Symbols on the Face (Herons, Lobsters, etc.). Smooth edge.
฿5 (Five Barra)			Seal of the Republic on the Reverse, xxxxxxxxx. Smooth edge.

Notes

Banknotes currently exist in five, fifteen, thirty, sixty, and three hundred-Barra forms, with the 30-Barra variant being the rarest due to its awkward place between the ฿15 and ฿60 notes. Earlier notes are no longer considered legal tender.

Denomination	Obverse	Reverse	Description
฿5
฿15
฿30
฿60
฿300

See Also

Office of the Treasury