My friend and I are having a lively discussion about the vault in Scrooge’s vault. Based on what we’ve seen on the cartoon “Duck Tales,” do you think it’s possible there’s a trillion dollars in there? That’s obviously an insane amount of money, and I’m not even sure that there’s ever been that much money put together in one place. However, we don’t know the dimensions of the vault; it could go down miles. Is it possible?
According to Forbes, Scrooge McDuck’s net worth is $8.2 billion. Of course, that was two years ago, but I doubt it’s made it up to a trillion dollars since then.
It doesn’t go down for miles, I can tell you that much. The Beagle Boys cleaned it out once with a giant vacuum cleaner, and it definitely had a bottom that was maybe 50 or so feet down. I’d say it was maybe 15-20 feet across, so you’ve got a cylinder of 8835.7 ft[sup]3[/sup] to 15708.8 ft[sup]3[/sup], approximately. Anyone wanna work out how much cash you could stuff in there?
Does anyone remember with what the vault was filled with? I seem to remember gold coins/bullion, but I could be wrong, as I haven’t seen it in years.
I remember it filled with gold coins with some bills scattered through it. Mabye some silver dollars here and there. And, of course, his Number One Dime.
Coins, maybe a few bills. Bullion would be difficult to swim through.
Canon sources on the subject say McDuck has “three cubic acres” of money.
Some analysis on the subject.
I loved reading Scrooge McDuck comics as a child. But even then I couldn’t understand why such a finance whizz would leave so much of his money in his vault where it wasn’t earning any interest.
8.2 billion? A trillion? Pocket change.
Small thinkers. Hmmph.
Those of us who read the comic books (ca. '50s) recall that Scrooge had several fantasticajillion dollars.
Scrooge had enough room to dive off a diving board and swim eight or nine freestyle strokes before he got to the other side. If I had to guess, I’d say the walls of the vault were about 20 meters (65 ft) square. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that the gold is 100 meters deep. 20m20m100m= 40,000m^3.
We can assume the coins were 1oz American Eagle gold bullion. There are about 35 coins in a 1 meter-tall stack. There are maybe 9 flat coins in a square meter. 35x9=315. There are about 315 coins per cubic meter. There are 40,000 cubic meters in the vault. There are 12,600,000 coins in the vault. At $430 per coin, that’s 5,418,000,000. Enough to swim in.
Sounds like this should say decimeter instead of meter in both cases. Probably need to multiply the calculated result by 1000.
Off to Cafe Society.
DrMatrix - GQ Moderator
According to the reprint I picked up on free comic day, McDuck’s total net worth (including mines and other holdings) was one multiplujillion, nine obsquatumatillion, six hundred and twenty-three dollars and sixty-two cents.
Well, it’s probably pocket change to him.
I stand corrected. 
Not, of course, that coins are easy to swim through. No one but Scrooge McDuck himself has ever managed it; as he once said, “I’ll admit, there’s a trick to it.”
One of flodjunior’s “Donald Duck & Co” comic books includes a reprint of Carl Barks’ blueprints for the Money Bin. The Vault is obviously the largest room, but the building also includes smaller rooms for gold bars, various precious gems, and other valuables, plus of course Uncle Scrooge’s apartment and work areas for all the people who manage the McDuck fortune. And booby traps. LOTS of booby traps. So don’t get any ideas
There is a related Staff Report on this issue: Who’s richer, Scrooge McDuck or Bill Gates?"
And a couple of prior threads of interest, in the forum “Comments on Staff Reports.”
Scrooge vs Bill Gates and mcduck vs gates. (I’m going to leave this thread here, and not move it. It’s not really about the Staff Report.)
Please note:
- The level of money in the money bin is almost always shown as having a depth of 98 or 99 feet, and is frequently described as “3 cubic acres” of cash.
- I said in the other thread,
- The money bin is not all of Scrooge’s wealth. He has plenty of investments, in everything from oil wells and diamond mines to peanut stands. But what’s the point of having a fortune if you can’t do with it what you’d like to do? And what he likes to do is burrow through it like a gopher, dive in it like a porpoise, and toss it up and let it hit him on the head.
Of course, my source for this are the original comics by the late, great Carl Barks… upon which “Duck Tales” was based. I don’t know if “Duck Tales” fictionalized any of Scrooge’s biography, or adapted or exaggerated for their own purposes. Let’s not confuse a cartoon with the reality, OK?
It’s a cartoon fantasy of having more money/wealth than anyone/someone else.
hijack?
Excessive wealth is a trap for the unprepared. It is either misused and wasted or hoarded and gloated over.
The real question should be "What would you do with sudden wealth, e.g. if you were to recieve 5 million dollars tax free? Use it, invest it, or save it for a rainy day?
The Beagle Boys, Scrooge and other folks in the Duck Tales cartoon cited that figure fairly often
Scrooge used that exact phrase in many episodes
I don’t have that many of the old comics, so I can’t say how closely Duck Tales followed them. But I can say
Life is like a hurricane, here in Duckburg.
Racecars, lasers, aeroplanes, it’s a duck blur
Might solve a mystery, or rewrite history.
What to do?
Just grab on to some Ducktales! (awhoohoo)
For the purist, Duck Tales does not exist. Just as the only canonical Sherlock Holmes stories are the 56 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the only canonical Unca Scrooge stories are by the late great Carl Barks.
Scrooge’s fortune does grow with time. In Unca Scrooge #1, “Only a Poor Old Man,” the depth gauge is only at 79 ft. But that just isn’t as funny an image as 99 ft. and the gauge went up to that point as early as issue #2, “Back to the Klondike,” and stayed there forever.
I don’t have the originals, of course, since only Scrooge himself can afford them these days, but I have the two boxed sets in the Carl Barks Library.
And Geoffrey Blum’s introduction has a great section right on point: