re: #43 steve_davis

I tend to think they would have an enormous amount of the gold in coin form, not so much even for day to day spending, but just because it would, to a dwarven mind, make a compact, readily identifiable, readily valued bit of currency. No need to have some guy with the green-shade visor and the magnifying glass come to make an appraisal. Just hand someone something and say, “It’s an unclipped King Theon, one imperial ounce of gold.”

Thinking about it further probably a fairly large amount of coin since IIRC Smaug had also looted Dale and along the Long Lake to assemble his horde. And presumably for trade with Dale and the humans along the lake you’d need coin since there are few indications of a merchant banking system and use of letters of credit. (And I think is part of a trade route running south along the river and probably north to the other dwarves enclaves in the Iron Hills.)

And by the time of The Hobbit the humans on the Long Lake are running trade with the elves in northern Mirkwood as well.