# Most expensive movable object? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 16, 2020, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527 "2020-07-16T21:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/42 "2021-10-19T04:31:39Z")
Some sort of special mention must go the Webb Space Telescope now. Right now it has just arrived at the launch site. At a cost of over 10 billion dollars, it is the only instance of the device, and should the unthinkable happen, and it is lost, it won’t be replaced. So that 10 billion does represent the true cost of the artefact. Here it is starting its sea delivery journey. The truck driver should be nervous. He will never see another load of such value. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/xU3s1Uh8FhI/maxresdefault.jpg "The Webb Telescope Journey to Space Part 2: Loading and Departing") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU3s1Uh8FhI) ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/43 "2021-10-19T04:43:26Z")
Depending on the definition fine print - The Federal reserve vault in NYC is where gold from national banks all over the world is stored. Each country gets its own room. It’s all made stuff (gold bars) and moveable. To balance, some bricks are moved from room to room every so often to reconcile accounts. [https://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/goldvault.html](https://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/goldvault.html) there are about 12,000 tons of gold. I read somewhere this is about a third of all gold that has been mined. Using a market price of $1750/oz, and ignoring for now distinctions between real and troy ounces, that’s about 42 _billion_ dollars of moveable stuff in one large system of accounting. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/44 "2021-10-19T16:28:31Z")
I work in central banking myself, so I’ve had the opportunity of being given a tour of this vault. It’s surprisingly unspectacular to see, more like a large warehouse subdivided into caged cells. I wouldn’t call it a moveable object, rather an underground storage of many individual movable objects. I’ve also been to central bank facilities for cash logistics and contingency preparedness that hold considerably more than $42bn in printed but unissued banknotes, so I don’t think the New York Fed vault, unique though as it is, holds a world record as far as the assembled value is concerned. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/45 "2021-10-20T05:35:17Z")
Oops - I forgot to multiply by 16 for ounces (or should it be 12?) That’s actually $672B in the NYC vault. Even with 12, that’s $504B But the whole lot is movable, and some of it is always being shuffled between rooms/cages. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/46 "2021-10-20T09:12:58Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > and some of it is always being shuffled between rooms/cages. This is not what I’ve been told by Fed people. From what I have heard, the gold bars there are individually numbered but most of them haven’t been touched in decades. If a central bank that holds gold with the NY Fed sells some of it to another central bank, that transfer will simply be settled by recording a new owner of the bars in question but without physically moving them. And I can’t see any business reason for doing it differently. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/47 "2021-10-20T09:42:31Z")
Does that mean the bars could have been stolen years ago and nobody would have noticed? ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/48 "2021-10-20T09:52:59Z")
The bars are individually numbered with a number that can be read from the front side ([this](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fed-has-6-200-tons-of-gold-in-a-manhattan-basementor-does-it-1502382644) WSJ article, which asks very similar questions, has a photo). So you can run an inventory by simply walking into the cages and checking if the numbered bars that, according to records, should be there really are. You can certainly do more in-depth audits (which would involve not just checking that the bar is there but also whether it is of the weight and purity that are won record); the WSJ article mentions such an audit from 2012. But those are done on random samples, not on the entirety of the stock. More frequent but less thorough inspections simply check if the vault and the doors have been tempered with from the outside. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/49 "2021-10-20T09:55:24Z")
Bang! There goes such a lovely conspiracy theory. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/50 "2021-10-20T11:20:59Z")
I would not count the gold bars at the NY Fed as a movable object. At least not a single movable object. Many movable objects, yes. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/51 "2021-10-20T14:09:41Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > We can do better than that. > > 10 pounds of antimatter would cost around $113,398,000,000,000. I doubt any Uber driver wants to be anywhere near it though so guessing you would have to pay a lot to have someone move it for you without killing themselves and every within several miles. And yet an Uber driver would have no problem delivering antipasto to you. They clear the table between courses, because if the antipasto and the pasta dish contents touch they will annihilate each other in a burst of energy and particle-antiparticle creation. For some reason this doesn’t happen in your stomach. It just feels like it. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/52 "2021-10-20T21:36:37Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > if the antipasto and the pasta dish contents touch they will annihilate each other in a burst of energy Would this be by means of gaseous emissions? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/53 "2021-10-20T21:44:38Z")
No one talks enough about how anti-spaghetti and anti-gnocchi are phases of nuclear pasta. Anti-lasagna does not exist, but only because it is the same thing as ordinary nuclear lasagna. I [am not](https://astrobites.org/2017/10/05/nuclear-pasta-in-neutron-stars/) making any of this up. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2021, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527/54 "2021-10-21T22:30:30Z")
I’m not sure whether he is at the top, but I would think that the person of Joe Biden should be in contention, although he was more conceived rather than built. I’m pretty sure that if Biden was kidnapped and rescuing him would require the loss of an aircraft carrier (minus he crew) I think that the pentagon would see it as a worthwhile trade. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-expensive-movable-object/915527.md?page=2)