Luke's HP Site

Wizarding Currency

One of the recurring issues that I read about is the exchange rate between galleons and non-magical currencies. It seems that many people dislike the five pounds to the galleon answer that we were given in 2001.1 It is hard for me to say definitively how realistic that conversion rate is or is not, however, I find that 1 gram of gold is

  • Width: 8mm (0.32 inches)
  • Length: 15mm (0.59 inches)
  • Depth/Thickness: 0.4mm (0.02 inches).2

That might be slightly small for a coin, but if you assume a galleon is not pure, it allows for a reasonable amount of gold per galleon. We next need to know the price of gold per gram, over time. BullionByPost provides a chart on that, which we will assume is reasonably accurate. Per that chart, in August of 1991, gold was approx £6.77/gram.3

It is important to note that Mrs. Rowling said the exchange rate varies.4 Gold is much more expensive per gram now, so we would be looking at exchange rates of something more like 40:1 now, if not higher.5 It is also important to know that her math is notoriously poor, and that 5:1 was an estimate.

So given that the galleon exchange rate seems more or less reasonable, I am going to assume that sickles and knuts are either equally reasonable, or that the metals involved are debased to become reasonable.

So in summary, galleons are not pure gold, and 5:1 was a slightly low estimate of what the exchange rate was when the series started. As the rate varied considerably over the course of Harry’s seven years, one would expect anything under 10:1 to be reasonable, but that it would probably go up and down a fair amount.

  1. Mrs. J. K. Rowling. “Comic Relief live chat transcript, March 2001” http://www.accio-quote.org 2001-03-01.↩︎

  2. USGB, LLC “How Big Is a Gold Bar?” Last Viewed: 2021-06-17.↩︎

  3. Jewellery Quarter Bullion Ltd. “Gold Charts UK in GBP per Gram” Last Viewed 2021-06-17. My figure was from 1991-08-14 on that chart.↩︎

  4. Mrs. J. K. Rowling. “Comic Relief live chat transcript, March 2001” http://www.accio-quote.org 2001-03-01.↩︎

  5. Jewellery Quarter Bullion Ltd. “Gold Charts UK in GBP per Gram” Last Viewed 2021-06-17. My figure was from 1991-08-14 on that chart.↩︎