There is a saying on Gor, ” Gold has no caste”. It is a saying of which the merchants are fond, Indeed secretly among themselves. I have heard they regard themselves as the highest Caste on Gor, though they would not say so for fewer of rousing the indignation of other Castes. There would be something,of course, to be said for such a claim., for the merchants are often indeed in their way, brave, shrewd,skilled men, making long journeys, venturing their goods, risking caravans, negotiating commercial agreements, amongst themselves developing and enforcing a body of merchant law., the only common legal arrangement existing among the Gorean Cities. Merchants also, if effect, arrange and administer the four great fairs that takes place each year near the Sardar Mountains. I say “in effect: because the fairs are nominally under the direction of a committee of the Caste of Initiates, which, however largely content itself with its ceremonies and sacrifices, and is only to happy to delegate the complex management of those vast, commercial phenomena, the Sadar Fairs, to members of the lowly, much despised Caste of Merchants, without which, incidentally, the fairs most likely would not exist, certainly not at any rate in their current form.

Nomads of Gor page 84

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Aside from being the law system adopted by many trade ports and cities, merchant law is said to be almost universally applied in areas of trade. It is almost the only law which commonly binds all cities, with probable exceptions (as with most things). Merchant law is drafted and stabilized at the fairs which are held four times a year at the foot of the Sardar Mountains. It covers as many aspects of trade and merchandising as one can think of, including, of course the market of human property. The fairs incidentally are governed by Merchant Law and supported by booth rents and taxes levied on the items exchanged. The commercial facilities of these fairs, from money changing to general banking, are the finest I know of on Gor, save those in Ar’s street of coins, and letters of credit are accepted and loans negotiated, though often at usurious rates, with what seems reckless indifference. Yet perhaps this is not so puzzling, for the Gorean cities will, within their own walls, enforce the Merchant Law when pertinent, even against their own citizens. If they did not, of courts, the fairs would be closed to the citizens of that city.    

 

Priest Kings of Gor Page 10

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The scales used by merchants, for example are calibrated by using a stone which is standardized and calibrated by using the official “stone” kept at Sardar. A similar rule exists for all “official” measurements used in trade. The weight and the stone, incidentally, are standardized thought the Gorean cities by Merchant Law, the only common body of law existing among the cities. The official “stone” actually a sold metal cylinder, is kept by the way, near the Sardar. Four times a year, on a given day in each of the four greats fairs held annually near the Sardar, it s brought forth with scales, that merchants from whatever city may test their own standard “stone” against it. As in the case of the official “Stone” so too at the Sardar is a metal rod, which determines the Merchant foot, or gorean foot as I have called it.
 

Raider of Gor page 127-128

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