The amount of money you have available to spend on equipment at the start of your career is your “starting wealth” – see Starting Wealth. To calculate this, start with the basic amount appropriate to your campaign’s tech level, found under Tech Level and Starting Wealth, and multiply it for your “wealth level”.

All prices in GURPS appear in “$”: a convenient abbreviation for any baseline unit of currency suitable to the setting. One $ may be one dollar, one credit, one copper piece, or whatever else is appropriate – see Tech Level and Starting Wealth. Prices in this chapter assume a typical sale made by an ordinary merchant, in a locale where the item is usually found, at a time when there is neither a shortage nor a surplus.

The currency in use depends on the game world; see Economics (p. 514). Coin is almost universal. Paper money is conceivable at TL3, common by TL5, and ubiquitous at TL6. Electronic credit and debit cards supplement or possibly replace other currency at TL8.

Two specific examples:

Medieval Coinage: The default assumption is that $1 is a copper farthing, $4 is a silver coin, and $1,000 in silver weighs 1 pound. Gold coins of the same weight are worth about 20 times as much.

Modern Money: The default assumption is that $1 is a bank note (or alloy coin), its value backed by a government or private bank. These assumptions may vary from world to world.