Assume there are no obstacles either to the purchase or to my purse. Let’s say that the Queen, Britain, the British People — whatever entity — is willing and legally able to sell and that I have unlimited funds. What would it cost me to buy Windsor Castle lock, stock, and barrel: all contents down to the last chamber pot (except, of course, for personnel)? I’m wondering whether it would approach (or possibly exceed) a billion dollars.
I think its impossible to say. Like all things, Windsor Castle is worth exactly what the highest bidder can and will pay. With unique items, art especially, you can at least compare a give item with similar items that have sold. I don’t think a palace has every been bought, definately not one with the history of Windsor Castle. Plus, you have all the unique artwork, statues and other items inside the Castle. Those on their own are difficult to gage, when you have hundreds (thousands?) of them the inaccuracy grows.
You are talking about one of the largest castles in the world, sitting 20 miles outside of London. I think, including all of the artwork, pieces, etc, you are easily talking billions of dollars.
It is a little known fact that Windsor Castle is presently owned by A Nigerian doctor. Doctor Mbeke happens to be a close personal friend of mine (in fact I am going to marry his daughter. To offset the costs of the wedding he is willing to entertain an offer of a mere $100,000,000. I will require a 5% deposit. Please let me know your account details.
This may act as a guide:
Windsor remained much the same throughout the 20th century as it had from the time of George IV; however, a 1992 fire devastated the castle. The fire evidently began in the northeast section of the Upper Ward as a spotlight ignited a curtain. The fire spread at roof level to surrounding areas of the castle despite frantic efforts of castle staff and the fire brigade to control the flames. The fire consumed the ceilings of George IV’s St. George’s Hall and Grand Reception Room and gutted the Private Chapel, the State Dining Room, the Crimson Drawing Room and other smaller rooms. Fortunately, the rooms most affected by the fire were mostly empty of their treasures as they were being rewired. A few priceless artifacts were destroyed, consequently, because they were too large to move and had been left in place.
The restoration of Windsor Castle began immediately following the devastating fire. A Restoration Committee, chaired by the Duke of Edinburgh, and an Art and Design Committee, chaired by the Prince of Wales, supervised the construction and restoration. It was decided that the damaged rooms would be completely restored while the destroyed rooms would be rebuilt to new designs. The goal of creating modern Gothic, original in detail and tradition, was met in the final product when the castle restoration was completed 5 years later. Windsor Castle was restored £3,000,000 under budget at £37,000,000.
It’s impossible to answer, because being willing to sell is only part of the equation; the important unknown (and perhaps unknowable) factor is *what price would the current owners consider acceptable? At the moment, that price is probably effectively more than any person, nation or corporation could afford, because it isn’t for sale.
You can’t value something without knowing the lowest price the seller would accept and you’ve made the assumption that there is such a price.
The only way to value something that is not for sale is by reference to comparable sales. There are none. This question therefore just can’t be answered.
It’s so simple, you get your real estate agent to run some comps on what similar castles in the neighborhood have sold for recently.
oh wait. :smack:
So are you saying that if I had an object, lets say a classic car (or any other object for that matter) which was unique, it would be impossible to insure it against theft because no value could be attached to it? How about a painting or other work of art? You could try and compare with the sales of similar works of art, but that wouldn’t necessarily give you any indication of the value of *this *one.
I agree it is a difficult task to assign a monetary value to a castle like this, but I do not believe it cannot be done.
I’m not sure that an economic theory approach is helpful, which is one reason I stipulated in the OP that there are no obstacles to the sale. Austrian economics would hold that so long as each party believes that what he is exchanging is worth more than what the other party is exchaning, and so long as each is free to exercise his volition, then an economic transaction will take place. After all, if each party thought that what he had is worth exactly the same as what the other one had, they’d just keep what they’ve got.
The reason I’m asking the question is because I wonder whether, at such high dollar amounts as this, the intrinsic value is sufficiently high that no other value need be added.
For example, a pendant belonging to Lucille Ball has an intrinsic value of $500 (for the gold and jewels). But because it belonged to her, and because there is sufficient documention (such as a photograph and contemporary newspaper article) to prove that it belongs to her, its actual value is much higher — say $5,000.
What I’m thinking is that, once you get into the billions, adding a few more million for sentiment or history is pointless. But multiplying the billions might be significant.
Whether something is insurable is a different question. To insure something, you just need agreement between the insured and insurer as to what they will insure for.
That doesn’t mean it is actually the market value of the item.
Furthermore, classic cars and other unique objects of that sort are in a completely different class to Windsor castle. There are sales of such items all the time. Even if an example of the particular car or other object has not sold recently, something vaguely comparable will have been.
There is simply no market at all of things comparable to Windsor castle.
Yeah, but location, location, location.
Do you mean right under the flight-path of Heathrow Airport ? That will knock a few million off its price.
If this falls through, I may be able to help you into a lovely bridge.
Can we not agree that there is such a state as priceless? - that there are some objects which simply cannot be exchanged for any amount of money or other compensation?
No, I don’t think so. Or, at least, I don’t think Windsor castle is such an object. I think if the scenario Lib proposes occurred, I don’t see any reason why HRH et al and the purchaser couldn’t negotiate and arrive at a figure. In principle.
Therefore I don’t think that it is something that “simply cannot be exchanged etc”
However, I don’t think there is any logical way of predicting what it is going to cost Lib when it happens. There is no market to compare to.
Fair enough; but as you say, you can’t postulate that HRH would be willing to sell, then ask how much.
I’m sure it would be possible to calculate the cost of a replica of Windsor castle, in any specified area; I’m sure it would be possible to guess at what a guide price for Windsor castle would have been if it was privately owned (although such prices could easily be wrong by a factor of ten or more, for such a large and desirable property), but the fact it is owned by the crown and is not for sale, makes the question impossible to answer.
As a sidenote, I’d be interested to see if we could actually come up with a candidate object for the term ‘priceless’.
A trinket made by one’s child as a Father’s Day gift might be priceless. But your restriction seems arbitrary, Mange: there’s no reason that the question cannot be answered as a hypothetical that assumes the property is owned by the crown or other entity, and that that entity is willing to sell. I’ve dealt with hypotheticals far more ridiculous. At least I’m not asking anyone to postulate that the castle is owned by giant squids.
I’m not saying it’s ridiculous, just unanswerable; how does the simple assumption of willingness to sell enable us to predict the asking price?
Assuming David Hasselhof was willing to accept money to have sex with a goat on live national TV while eating simultaneously feces from the skull of a dead baby, what price do you think he would be willing to charge? I know this is a ridiculous hypothetical, but our perception of a very high price is intrinsically linked to the simple fact of unwillingness.
In fact, if Hasselhof agreed to do this, all bets as to the asking price would be off, because it would represent an abandonment of reason.
Telling us that it’s impossible to value Windsor unless the owner puts a value on it themselves is a fair point. Fortunately, the Crown Estate values the Windsor Estate at £154m.
http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/102_2005_annual_report.pdf (PDF warning)
Mange, I’m not asking how much the Queen would charge to dance nude while whistling Hail Britannia. I’m asking about the value of hard assets and real property. And it looks like GorillaMan has answered a part of it. Reading the report though, it seems that the £154 million figure is for real estate value only, and does not include antiques and paintings, which total more than £5 billion for the whole Crown estates. Now if I could just split Windsor out of that figure, I’d be close to a price.