So, what is the exchange rate between Gringots and Muggle Currency? I have been trying to work it out, and have had a fairly hard time. The main problem for me is the inconsistancy. When it comes to galleons the variation in prices can vary quite wildly, Harrys wand costs 7 galleons for example, is that not very cheap if Hermione got 10 galleons from her parents to buy herself a birthday present? In OotP at one point Harry is walking around with more than 10 galleons in his purse.
Anyhow, I offer two things in this thread. One my own suggested exchange rate, and two a full record of prices mentioned in books 1-5. The book 5 quotes will be in a spoiler box, none of the others will. I haven’t included monetary refernces such as “he hasn’t got two knuts to rub together” etc.
I realise the conversions should probably be into GBP, but for the greatest ease of the greatest number of posters, perhaps we could use USD?
My suggested exchange rate:
1 galleon ~= 10 Dollars
1 Sickle ~= 1.5 Dollar
1 Knut ~= 50 cents
This obviously does not gel with the galleons:sickles:knuts ratio as explained by Hagrid, but I don’t have a problem with that.
So, for comparison a bottle of Butterbeer in the Hogs Head would cost about 3 dollars as would membership in SPEW, you would get a nice new quill about 10 dollars. 50 cents for the newspaper sounds about right, they don’t have much competition it seems.
At 10 dollars per galleon, Mr Weasley was fined 500 dollars for the car escapade, Omnoculars cost about 100 dollars, and the twins combined life savings at the time of the World Cup was about 370 bucks. This means that wands cost very little, but perhaps since everyone has to have one they are a “day-to-day” item?
Money magazine actually tried to figure this out, based on the pricing listed on one of the Harry Potter schoolbooks sold for charity. Their results, with a link to a currency converter.
Having some experience with the difficulties inherent in converting medieval and early modern wages and prices to modern-day figures, I imagine that any systematic attempt to convert Galleons to Muggle money would run into the same problems. Most wizard products and services don’t exist in our world, and vice versa; others might be scarcer or more commonplace. Furthermore, it’s clearly a very different economic system: Iteki’s notes suggest that the gap between rich and poor is much larger in the wizarding world (compare the contents of the Weasley vault to the prices of luxury goods such as the Firebolt), and there’s a large supply of unpaid labor (house-elves) to complicate things. I’d be cautious about any direct conversions.
This whole mess is another example of Rowling’s poor craftsmanship. As I said in an earlier thread, she’s an excellent storyteller but only a fair author – at best.
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Here’s a prime example of her sloppiness. Seventeen Sickles is supposed to be one Galleon.
You’ll never figure out how much things “cost” in Harry Potter because Rowling didn’t give much thought to the matter.
The 14 sickles, 3 knuts = $3.99 the article cited above mentions is reasonably consistent with the UK version too, where it equals £2.50. It would, however, suggest that a galleon is a little over £3, and not £5 as suggested.
That being said, I can’t really get too worked up over this. Rowling was obviously poking a bit of fun at predecimalization British currency (12 pence to the shilling, 20 shillings to the pound, and a guinea was a pound and a shilling).
Funny, I was just thinking about posting something about Hogwart’s economy. But I thought of it last night as I was drifting off to sleep. May as well ask it here.
Who pays the students’ tuition at Hogwarts? The Dursley’s sure don’t! Is Harry’s tuition paid out of his parents’ hoard? What happens to the poor wizarding families? How do their kids leard the craft?
I certainly got the impression that Harry’s tuition was paid for by his parents, either from the vault or paid in advance. As far as poor wizard families(eg the Weasleys), maybe there are scholarships or something. though the Weasley family members(aside from Percy) don’t seem to take their studies seriously enough to maintain a scholarship.
You hit the nail right on the head, Truth Seeker, if you’ll pardon my cliche. It seems to me as if Rowling didn’t really come up with a firm value system for HP currency; she just writes down whatever looks right. It doesn’t seem to have hurt her sales any, though. Which brings up an interesting point… which is the better author, the one who makes an impeccably crafted world or the one who makes a sloppier world but presents it better?
Remember that in Rowling’s novels, the wizarding world is a complete, underground society and economy that only touches the Muggle world at a few limited points. Wizards only need to worry about the exchange rate of galleons to pounds if they need to do shopping in Muggle stores, etc.
How much of that they do is unclear. In the first book I assumed that the meals served in the Hogwarts dining hall are simply created by magic. Later we learned that the food is in fact prepared by house-elves in the basement, and magically transported upstairs. This suggests that the food itself, the raw ingredients, had to come from somewhere. There are some wizards in the business of growing herbs for magical purposes, but there does not seem to be any such thing as a wizard farmer, growing crops for market. If there isn’t, then all food wizards eat must be purchased from Muggles, and that would require an established system of currency exchange. Ditto with a long list of manufactured goods which wizards use but do not make. Perhaps Gringott’s has a Muggle front-bank for acquiring pounds, which then are sent on to the Diagon Alley headquarters for exchange?
But is the wizarding community truly separate from the Muggle community? When matters of public safety are raised, Cornelius Fudge is only too happy to alert the Muggle Prime Minister. And in Order of the Phoenix, Vernon Dursley
goes off the deep end when he hears about the Ministry of Magic. “People like you in government? Oh this explains everything, everything, no wonder the country’s going to the dogs. . . .” Odd, though, that the letter that came from the Ministry in Chamber of Secrets didn’t rouse the same concerns. . . .
Anyway, what’s the deal? Do the Ministry of Magic profess even a token allegiance to the Crown?
It’s kind of a false dichotomy. There’s really no excuse for being so sloppy since for less than 100 bucks U.S. you can buy software that will help you keep everything straight.
Rowling is a very talented – and lucky – amateur. Most authors go to enormous effort to learn their craft before getting published. She didn’t, and it shows.
So is their money based on something that cannot be created by magic as, if you will forgive me, latinum is valuable in Star Trek because it cannot be replicated?
Good question, carnivorousplant, since in Order of the Phoenix Hermione created counterfeit Galleons that apparently were indistinguishable from the real thing.
Given that and leprechaun gold, one has to question the usability of the whole system.
Fiver, I didn’t think she actually created them, just that she adapted ones she already had. But then she would have had to part with 30 galleons of her own. Hermione doesn’t strike me as selfish or greedy, but it seems unlikely, if galleons are supposed to be worth about 5 pounds.
One point: I think that the Gringotts goblins could tell the difference between their gold and the coins Hermione made, so the students would get in trouble if they spent the Galleons.
But what really makes the system unstable is the existence of the Philosopher’s Stone. In the wrong hands, it even presents a danger to the balance of the Muggle economy.
Another point: Perhaps Ministry employees are entitled to free education for their children. I know a similar system is putting me through school. And those who don’t, live closer to the Muggle world, and don’t have to deal with the rift in the Wizard economy as much.
thanks for the link tho mobo85. A mod can lock this.