I was thinking about a game that combines RPG with a merchant trading system... the problem I am having though is how to deal with the two completely seperate levels of wealth. On the one hand, they should have a manageable amount of wealth to purchase things such as equipment/upgrades/consumables etc... on the other hand they need large amounts of wealth to do things such as purchase new transports/hire shopkeepers/transporters/farmers/buy property/buy expensive goods/etc.

It wouldn't make much sense to have two separate currencies, but it if they had the money to purchase expensive items all personal needs would be trivial, but if they only had enough to make personal belongings non-infinite they wouldn't have enough to purchase the expensive items.

Have you played the Fable games?

I was thinking about a game that combines RPG with a merchant trading system... the problem I am having though is how to deal with the two completely seperate levels of wealth. On the one hand, they should have a manageable amount of wealth to purchase things such as equipment/upgrades/consumables etc... on the other hand they need large amounts of wealth to do things such as purchase new transports/hire shopkeepers/transporters/farmers/buy property/buy expensive goods/etc.

Why do you assume the one (equipment) costs little money and the other (warehouse) costs a lot ?
That this holds true in RL(to some extent) does not mean you need to copy that exact pricing scheme.

They can be equal.

In fact, choosing to do all the pricing yourself makes sure you can balance the game.

My last comment on bronze/iron swords, from wikipedia (sorry for clogging the thread:) Ancient greek (late), roman and germanic swords were iron, not bronze. Viking swords were iron/steel:

Wiki

With the spread of the La Tene culture at the 5th century BC, iron swords had completely replaced bronze all over Europe. These swords eventually evolved into, among others, the Roman gladiusand spatha, and the Greek xiphos and the Germanic sword of the Roman Iron Age, which evolved into the Viking sword in the 8th century

Bronze Age swords appear from around the 17th century BC, in the Black Sea region and the Aegean, evolving out of the dagger. They are replaced by the Iron Age sword during the early part of the 1st millennium BC.