Using the Chamber of Commerce as Alexandria

Question

I was the Alexandria civilization

which starts with the glass luxury good as a starting resource. I played the Chamber of Commerce card (the middle one)

which grants a player 2 gold and 2 victory points for each luxury good they have. However, upon counting my starting resource as "a card", my friend pointed out that the Chamber of Commerce has a gray rectangle on it; obviously this meant that it only counts if the luxury good is a card, not a starting resource.

Obviously I thought this was outrageous, but I thought it would make for a good question here. Any thoughts? I didn't find anything in the rules about special exceptions for starting resources.

Answer 1

Your friend is correct, Chamber of Commerce and other cards like it only count resource cards, not your starting resources or resources produced from other sources such as Wonder benefits or Yellow cards.

On the Description of the Wonders page of the rules you'll see a clarification at the top

Clarification: the resources produced by the boards are not considered to be cards.

Answer 2

If you look at the rules there is a specific example of how this works.

On Page 6, in para 6, "Commercial Structures":

Example: Alexandria has built the Chamber of Commerce. This structure is worth 2 Victory Points for each gray card present in their city. Alexandria has played 2 gray cards: 4 Victory Points.

And in the accompanying picture, Alexandria has played two cards on top of their starting glass luxury good. You can't get any clearer than that!

I think the fact that the Chamber of Commerce depicts a gray card on it, as opposed to any other gray object, makes it easier to accept that it's only cards that matter for scoring it, not other sources of luxury goods.