Holo had been calling herself a wise wolf up to this point, but we finally get to see that wisdom come into play this episode. She managed to add a 50% premium to Lawrence's pelt sale through what amounts to a bit of apple perfume paired with a compelling story. If you ever find yourself in a workshop or seminar about marketing, you will often hear about how the story of a brand or product is one of the most important aspects of marketing. If people buy your story, then they will buy your product. Turns out that is also true in Lawrence's world.
Finally, turns out that the silver content is being reduced in the coinage. I was trying to figure out how Lawrence might profit from a devalued currency, but was having trouble. It wasn't until he said that he was heading to the Milone Trading Company that I had an idea. Essentially, what is happening is that the currency is being devalued. Countries in our world will intentionally devalue their currency for a couple reasons, but the primary one is to make imports more expensive and domestically produced goods cheaper on an international market thereby boosting their exports. China and Brazil are two examples of countries that have strategically devalued their currency with this in mind.
The important part of this is that the Milone Trading Company is a foreign company. So, most of their goods are being imported from abroad. I think that Lawrence is going to buy up imported goods now from Milone and then sell them later after the currency has been further devalued and imported goods are more expensive. The other idea I had is that he might be trying to sell the devaluation information to Milone as they would surely stand to have their business heavily impacted by this.
Anyway, I hope we see more of Lawrence's money changer friend. He was fun (@[email protected]):