# How much would a stereotypical Pirate Chest actually weigh? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2017, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026 "2017-01-01T04:16:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/21 "2017-01-04T01:35:20Z")
In Hangover III, Lesley Chou carries two large duffel bags, each full with a dozen or more bars of gold, to a van. Then with a gestural grunt heaves each into the back of the vehicle. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/22 "2017-01-04T01:46:55Z")
Arrrrrrrr… data seems sketchy… 😉😃 ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2017, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/23 "2017-01-04T02:05:00Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > I have a recollection that when they tried to lift said fabric suitcase, it immediately tore. But I might be remembering it wrong or mixing it up with another movie. I just watched Three Kings a couple of days ago. It was pretty egregious. When they got to the bunker, there were maybe 20-30 flimsy-ass suitcases; like cheap, wal-mart level roller bags, each stuffed completely full of solid gold bars, so at minimum 2 cubic feet. So, about 2000lbs according to the poster above. The suitcases tore, but no problem, because they happened to have a pile of designer bags in the corner, Louis Viton (sp?) IIRC. Apparently the designer logos are extremely strong, because those bags managed to handle being stuffed with gold no problem, and were easily passed around. Granted, they did show them as being maybe half full of gold, but we’re still talking at least 500-1000 lbs each. Otherwise a pretty good movie. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/24 "2017-01-05T10:17:05Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > On a similar note, a standard attache case found handcuffed to your skeleton wrist after your plane crashes in the Caribbean will contain less than a million dollars in crisp US $100 bills packed in tight. Or 100,000 rupees: peti: “a suitcase” (using 100Rs bills, which used to be the largest denomination) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/25 "2017-01-05T17:11:07Z")
> [@Gukumatz](#): > > England still uses the “crown gold” standard for minting new gold sovereigns. It was introduced in the 1500s by Henry VIII, I think, so I guess that could be the type of gold crown reasonably expected to show up in a pirate chest. Wouldn’t coins in the Caribbean most commonly be Spanish? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/26 "2017-01-05T17:28:24Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Wouldn’t coins in the Caribbean most commonly be Spanish? Even in the British colonies that later became the US, most coins in circulation were Spanish (eventually leading to US coins being named after the Spanish dolar instead of the pound). ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/27 "2017-01-05T20:20:15Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > As far as I know, Flemming never actually said in the book, how GF planned to shift it. I remember that he never planned to move it. He planned to irradiate the gold making it untouchable…so that his own gold stockpile would rise in value. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/28 "2017-01-05T20:39:01Z")
Since we’re talking about the plausibility of the plot of Goldfinger, anyone want to comment on the plausibility of the gold theft in the third Die Hard film (Die Hard with a Vengence), in which the gold stored at the New York Federal Reserve Bank is stolen in a series of dump trucks? According to Wikipedia, there is 4,582 metric tons of gold at Fort Knox vs 7,000 metric tons in New York, although I don’t know how much was at Fort Knox when either the book or the movie Goldfinger were created. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/29 "2017-01-05T20:42:36Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I remember that he never planned to move it. He planned to irradiate the gold making it untouchable…so that his own gold stockpile would rise in value. That was in the movie. In Fleming’s novel, the plan was to steal the gold, though a small atom bomb was part of the plan to blow open the vault. Novel-Bond points out the inherent flaws in the plan, as does movie-Bond, though movie-Goldfinger introduces the idea of destroying Knox’s gold in place by detonating the A-Bomb inside the already-breached vault. A more shocking twist to the story would have been them breaking into the vault and finding it empty because the U.S. Government had been lying about its gold reserves for years. As an incidental note, I drove by the depository in 1997. It is (or at least then was) a mildly interesting-looking white building sat WAAAAY back behind a really tall chain-link fence. Oddly, the gift store at Fort Knox had virtually no merchandise relating to the depository. I ended up sending home a postcard with a picture of a tank on it. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2017, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/30 "2017-01-05T21:56:19Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > As I recall, the impossibility to carting away so much gold was why the filmmakers of Goldfinger changed from the book’s plot of stealing the contents of Fort Knox to irradiating it to reduce the world supply of the stuff and thereby make Goldfinger’s own gold more valuable. That doesn’t make much sense either when you think about it. Whether that gold is locked inside Ft. Knox, buried in a mine or shot into the sun, it isn’t in circulation and shouldn’t affect Mr. Finger’s wealth one way or the other, right? ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/31 "2017-01-06T02:28:38Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > A more shocking twist to the story would have been them breaking into the vault and finding it empty because the U.S. Government had been lying about its gold reserves for years. > [@DrCube](#): > > That doesn’t make much sense either when you think about it. Whether that gold is locked inside Ft. Knox, buried in a mine or shot into the sun, it isn’t in circulation and shouldn’t affect Mr. Finger’s wealth one way or the other, right? OK, a brief primer on US government gold in the 1960s: A common misconception was the the gold in Fort Knox backed the dollar, although the government was happy to let people think that. The USA hadn’t been on a true gold standard since the Gold Reserve Act of 1934. Instead of the dollar being defined as so many dollars being worth a troy ounce of gold, the relationship of dollars to gold was reversed, the price of gold being fixed at 35 dollars to the ounce, and this artificial price maintained by banning most private possession of gold. So what was all the gold in Fort Knox for? Primarily for banks to be able to conduct business with overseas financial institutions, in gold certificates that were redeemable for actual gold only by banks or foreign governments. The whole system fell apart in 1971, when after years of the French government dumping its dollar holdings and insisting on payment in bullion, the US government suspended convertibility of the dollar to gold. So at the time _ **Goldfinger** _ was written/filmed, having a large reserve of gold was indeed a big thing. If the US had lost all of the reserve in Fort Knox, Goldfinger could have demanded virtually anything from the US government in exchange for covering the US’s obligations. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/32 "2017-01-06T15:17:26Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > So what was all the gold in Fort Knox for? Primarily for banks to be able to conduct business with overseas financial institutions, in gold certificates that were redeemable for actual gold only by banks or foreign governments. That’s why, as **Dewey Finn** asserted, the FRB vault in New York has a bigger stash than Ft. Knox – most of it belongs to foreign governments. If China buys $10-million worth of wheat from Canada, the wheat might cross the Pacific, but the gold is simply pulled from the China niche and loaded onto a heavy-duty truck, which is trundled over to the Canada niche and unloaded there. I read as a kid that all that heavy trundling wears out the oak floor in about five years, whereupon it is torn up and burned to recover enough gold to pay for its replacement. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/33 "2017-01-06T16:29:31Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > That’s why, as **Dewey Finn** asserted, the FRB vault in New York has a bigger stash than Ft. Knox – most of it belongs to foreign governments. If China buys $10-million worth of wheat from Canada, the wheat might cross the Pacific, but the gold is simply pulled from the China niche and loaded onto a heavy-duty truck, which is trundled over to the Canada niche and unloaded there. I read as a kid that all that heavy trundling wears out the oak floor in about five years, whereupon it is torn up and burned to recover enough gold to pay for its replacement. Do they really physically move the gold instead of just keeping track of who owns how many ingots? ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2017, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026/34 "2017-01-07T19:20:16Z")
> [@ASGuy](#): > > And don’t forget _Kelly’s Heroes_ (1970). When the gold was being removed each man carried one case at a time and many men were in use. The Yanks had their truck and the Germans had theirs. I thought it an accurate portrayal of the weight and difficulty of transporting gold. I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen that cited in previous threads as a prime example of an inaccurate Hollywood depiction. The way [Kelly waves around a gold bar one-handed and other guys pick up crates ostensibly full of gold like they weigh nothing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfRe37vu3PA#t=2m20s) is not particularly convincing. But maybe I’m being whooshed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-would-a-stereotypical-pirate-chest-actually-weigh/776026.md?page=1)