Exchange rate, Galleons to Dollars

[plinsenmayer]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C4097
From: plinsenmayer
Subject: Re: Exchange rate, Galleons to Dollars
Reply To: [Yahoo! #4045] Re: Exchange rate, Galleons to Dollars
Date: 7/12/00 5:52 pm  (ET)

Hi:

<<<Well, most newspapers cost about a quarter (note to the UK: that
means a quarter of a dollar, or 25 cents). So if 5 knuts = $.25, then

1 knut = $.05
1 sickle = 29 knuts = $1.45 which is about a British pound, right?
1 galleon = 17 sickles = $24.65.

Hmmmm.......sounds like too much. In Book 3, Hermione has 10 galleons
spending money -- almost $250 sounds like a lot of spending money for a
13 year old girl. And Harry pays 7 galleons for his wand, which would
be $172.55. Pretty steep, although, personally, I would be willing to
pay that much for a magic wand.>>>

I liked these figures better than the scaled down version. I would not
think $150-$200 for a wand to be unreasonable -- it is supposed to be
their wand for the rest of their lives, right? I agree that $250 is alot
for a cat, but it never says that she spent the entire 10 galleons on
Crookshanks, does it? If Hermione is upper middle class & an only child,
that amount of money for her b-day gift might not be that out of whack.

SPOILER WARNING (VERY END OF GOF)

la dee dah dee dah

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Harry gives about 1000 galleons to Fred & George, right? Under the $25
exchange rate (rounding), he gave them $25,000. That's a good amount
of capital to start a small business. But, $5000 is alot less likely to
get a business running.

I'm inclined to go with the higher estimate.

Penny