 Before Moria was abandoned by the Dwarves, while it was still being actively mined, mithril was worth ten times its weight in gold.After the Dwarves abandoned Moria and production of new mithril stopped entirely, it became priceless.The Tolkien critic Paul Kocher interprets the Dwarves' intense secrecy around mithril and their devotion to artistry in metal and stone as "a sublimation of their sexual frustration", given that they have very few dwarf-women and love beauty with a "jealous possessiveness", or (quoting Tolkien) "being engrossed in their crafts".