British Money/ Wizarding Money

[Flying Ford Anglia]

No: HPFGUIDX 8788

Metal of UK coins:

Just for the record, the one pence piece is made of copper-plated 
steel, the current two pence coins are made of bronze and the 5, 10, 
20 and 50 pence bits are all cupronickel (although the 20p has a 
slightly higher copper content than the others).  The one pound coin 
is made of nickel-brass and the two pound coin consists of a central 
disc of cupronickel and an outer ring of nickel-brass.

Wizard money:

In Sunday's chat, we discussed the fact that Galleons must be very 
heavy if they are large and made of solid gold.  With all this talk 
of the UK's funny heptagonal and two-tone coinage, I am now wondering 
whether Galleons might have, say, a hole in the middle to reduce the 
weight.  Otherwise, the pockets of the wizard population must drag 
along the ground like a sack of potatoes.  Someone, Pippin I think, 
suggested that there must be a charm to make the coins feel lighter – 
that makes sense.  Of course, we're assuming that wizard gold is 
actually made of real - Au – gold; could it be something different 
that is just gold-coloured?  Does it say anywhere that it is actual 
gold?

I also asked the other chatters how large they thought a Gringott's 
vault was.  Guesses ranged from the size of a wall safe to the size 
of a small room, but there was some agreement that the vaults were 
probably as large as they need to be, expanding or contracting 
according to the contents.

Does Harry have the foggiest idea what amount of money is in his 
vault?  When he has withdrawn money, he seems to just scoop handfuls 
of coins into a bag, which suggests that there is so much money in 
the vault he doesn't have to bother about the amount he is taking.  
Don't the goblin bankers have to monitor deposits and withdrawals by 
their customers and issue statements, or is all that done magically?

Neil