#irrigos

First, units. A Parabola-Linen Scrap costs 62.50 Echoes. Who knows what a "scrap" is. A "bale" of parabola linen is sold for 120 E at Wolfstack Exchange in Sunless Sea. Cloth isn't usually sold in bales, as far as I know (except for cotton). Bolts are equally ambiguous, since a bolt of fabric isn't actually a consistent measurement, and the yardage of a bolt depends on the type of fabric. This is a unit nightmare. But, okay. We can make this work.

Okay. Spider silk. In Sunless Sea, "bolts" of Spider-Silk (how many bolts? Who knows!) can be bought for 100 E at Wolfstack. Then, Fallen London. In Spite, you sell 100 Silk Scraps for 10 Surface-Silk Scraps (which makes sense, as 1 Surface-Silk Scrap (0.10 E) is 10 times more expensive than a Silk Scrap (0.01 E)). The description for the Silk Scrap indicates that it's Spider Silk, which is further supported by Spite's action description of "Swap spiders-silk for surface-silk". Okay. So that's 10,000 Silk Scraps in "bolts" of Spider-Silk. Now, the description for selling at Spite says, "Sell off a few yards of silk." Let's call it 5 yards. So, 100 Scraps in 5 Yards, or 20 Scraps to a Yard. I found a source saying that a bolt of silk is 40 yards. So, 800 Scraps to a Bolt. That makes about 12.5 Bolts in the ambiguous "bolts" of Spider-Silk in Sunless Sea. And I'm pretty comfortable with that number. It makes sense.

Okay. 800 Scraps to a 40 Yard Bolt. Works for the spider silk. It's not gonna work for the Parabola-Linen, as I will now demonstrate.

Now, Bolts of linen, as far as I can find, are 20 Yards. So, 400 Scraps to a Bolt of linen. A Scrap of Parabola-Linen costs 62.50, so a Bolt should cost 1250 E.

Problem. That is 10 times the cost of a Bale of Parabola-Linen (120 E). Even assuming a discount on the Bale for buying in bulk, that's absolutely insane. We're gonna have to go a different direction to figure out how much fabric is in a Scrap of Parabola-Linen.

The Parabola-Linen Frock in Fallen London costs 470 E. I found a source for historical costuming. According to this source, a full dress, similar to the Parabola-Linen Frock, would take 8-11.5 yards of cloth (for the bodice, short puffed sleeves, and skirt, since the appearance of the frock doesn't seem to have the full mutton sleeves). We'll call it an average of 9.75 yards, or 10 yards, just to make the math a little easier on ourselves. So, it takes half a bolt of Parabola-Linen to make one Parabola-Linen Frock. I'm going to ignore the labor cost and price markup of a finished product, because jesus christ, please, I have been working on this for over an hour already and my brain hurts. So we'll just assume that the price of the Parabola-Linen Frock is the same as the price for the materials, or 470 E. A full Bolt of Parabola-Linen is therefore in the range of 940 E. If a Scrap costs 62.50, and a Bolt costs 940 E, then there are about 15 Scraps in a Bolt of Parabola-Linen. This also means that a Scrap of Parabola-Linen is slightly larger than a Yard.

Hooray. Now it's time to compare to historical costs. According to this source, 1 yard of silk cost about $1 in 19th century money (ignore the site's conversion of $1 in the 19th century being $13 in modern money, it's WAY off). From what I can find, in the 19th Century, it was about $5 to £1. And £1 in Victorian England was worth something like £95 in today's currency, which with today's currency value is about $116.85 in modern money.

Also, a full coat of women's clothing cost anywhere between $120-$200 in 19th century dollars. That's £11,300-£18,800 in modern pounds sterling, and $13,900-$23,124 in modern dollars.

Okay. Math time. 20 Scraps of Spider-Silk to 1 Yard. A Scrap of Spider Silk is 0.01E, so a Yard of it is 0.20E. A Yard of Silk in not-Neathy currency is also £0.20, since 1 19th century dollar converts to about 1/5 of a 19th century pounds sterling, and a 19th century dollar can buy you a yard of silk. That makes our conversion rate from echoes to pounds sterling really easy -- they're 1:1.

Chart time! I broke out Excel for y'all. This better make it onto the Failbetter official tumblr, or I s2g--

So. Spider-Silks are common. Makes sense. There are a lot of spiders in the Neath. Surface-Silks are more expensive. Also makes sense. Gotta import that shit. Parabola-Linen is 100% only for the obscenely wealthy. A dress made of it is worth more than some cars. Makes sense why getting one makes you considered a Person of Some Importance: A Legendary Charisma.