There have been various debates based on the volume of his money bin, or whether “jillion” can be compared to other putative values. But recently I came across this excerpt, which can be taken as canon at least at the time (doubtless Scrooge’s fortune has fluctuated substantially, not to even mention inflation).
Slightly over 315 1/2 quadrillion dollars.
I’m thinking Cafe Society. It’ll be richer there.
I have nothing quantitative to contribute, but here’s Family Guy’s take on Uncle Scrooge’s pool:
Further proof that money has value simply because people believe it does.
As I recall, that money bin was never more than about 1/3 full, so what’s the big deal?
When the coins and cash hit the ceiling, then we’re talking big money!
I thought Dex explained this to you already.
https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1807/whos-richer-bill-gates-or-scrooge-mcduck/
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
I’m not sure he’s as rich as he says. Those could be low-denomination coins, or even chocolate ones in gold foil. Have we seen Mr. McDuck’s tax returns?
The most valuable coin in his Money Bin is his lucky dime!
Nah, that’s just a replica. He keeps the real dime on his person.
I love the recent top ten list that lists Edward Cullen (Twilight) as the richest fictional character simply because he’s lived long than Scrooge.
Scrooge’s fortune is not all just squirreled away in the Money Bin, he has thousands of businesses that are all, presumably, turning a profit, and countless priceless treasures from throughout all of history and legend alike.
There’s also the fact that so much of what is stored in the Money Bin is not just face value, much of it has numismatic value as well. I recall one story in which, after managing to steal a single (rare) coin from near the bottom of the bin, the Beagle Boys sold it for hundreds of dollars because, “he’s probably got so many he makes them rare!”
There’s also the story where Donald offers to work polishing the coins in the bin at half his normal rate of thirty cents an hour provided he gets to choose the coins Uncle Scrooge pays him with. Naturally, Donald excavates all the way to the bottom of the bin for the rarest coins. Spoiler alert- it doesn’t work out too well for Donald.
OK, I’m curious, what happened to Donald?
thanks,
Brian
If memory serves, I believe that Donald carefully researches and seeks out the rarest coins, but Scrooge screws him by flooding the market with rare coins, thus diminishing Donald’s proceeds to face value, so he was still ultimately earning just 15 cents an hour. Poor Donald.
Forbes Magazine calculated Uncle Scrooge’s worth as $65.4 billion:
Wouldn’t Scrooge have lost value on what his coins were previously worth just to screw Donald? That doesn’t sound like him.
Scrooge has a weird relationship with Donald in that he depends on him for a lot of things, but there’s also an adversarial aspect to it as well, probably stemming from the fact that Uncle Scrooge was originally created as an antagonist to Donald for a Christmas story. He proved to be a popular character and became a major figure in Disney’s “Donald Duck universe,” so he stuck around, but that antagonistic relationship remained.
The moral of the story is about placing your own value on things, not to let others decide what’s valuable to you. So Scrooge values all his coins as momentos from his life, not for what a coin dealer will pay.
With that in mind, the excavation caves in on Donald, he almost dies, Uncle Scrooge saves him with the help of a zillion dollar coin, Donald takes the zillion dollar coin as payment to sell to a coin dealer, the nephews guilt him into giving the zillion dollar coin back to Uncle Scrooge because, having saved their Uncle Donald’s life, the coin is now worth more than what any coin dealer could pay for it.
I can’t find a link to the story, but as I recall: Donald bought them by the bagful for more than the value (I think $.50 for a quarter) and keeps selling them to the coin dealer until the dealer told him to stop because he was flooding the market and the coin was no longer rare. IIRC, since Donald bought the last batch on credit from Uncle Scrooge, after paying him from his profits, Donald ended up with $0.15.
There’s also the The Secret of Atlantis where Scrooge buys up identical coins to the one Donald gave him just to make his rare.
