What is the limit on selling during your turn?

Question

Bohnanza (known under different names in different countries)

Is a rather simple game intended to have a quick learning curve.

So, the rulebook is brief and thus there are some gaps that are not covered. One of this is the selling. Excluding the 2 players variant, according to the rulebook:

you may sell crops at any point of the game

And:

The limit on coins you get is 4 per sale

Combining these rules, I want to know how selling works during your turn. Consider it is your turn and you have two full plantations. Can you:

• sell one of them for 4 coins, and plant in the emptied field
• sell the other field for 4 coins, and plant a second card?

Basically, does the limit of 4 coins apply to your turn or to a single sale (in which case it's redundant, as no card gives more than 4)?

Answer 1

It is a redundant rule. This printing from Rio Grande Games doesn't even mention the 4 gold maximum per sale. Under Harvesting and selling beans (page 7), it only mentions restrictions on selling from a bean field with fewer than 2 beans only when both fields have exactly 1 bean. The other rule you mention is reiterated though. Therefore, you can earn 8 gold in the example that you gave.

Players may harvest and sell beans at any time, even when they are not the active player. [...]

Answer 2

I think "4 per sale" is fairly simple and explicit, 4 per sale. You can carry out multiple sales per turn, and gain as many coins from each sale as your beans are worth.

If the game wanted you to gain a maximum of 4 coins on each of your turns as active player, it would certainly have specified "4 coins per turn", instead of "4 per sale" (which pretty much goes without saying anyway).