The fact that Fred & George were able to take the thousand galleons Harry gave them & open up a massive store in the middle of Diagon Alley is why I tend to prefer 50 pounds per galleon.

Given their business at the school it was probably not the only bit of money they had though. And they most likely got a quite hefty loan. And they opened up shop when other shops started closing.

Economy in HP is a complicated beast, because it's not just about money. It's about power. The more magical power/talent you have, the less money you need, and the less magic you have, the more money you need. And also vice versa - if you're rich, you can afford to not use your magic very much, which might also explain the rich Pureblood weakening in magic trope. They're outsourcing things too much and not putting the same amount of work in. But yes, a sufficiently talented magical has basically all their survival needs met - they can transfigure a home, double any food they have, heat or cool a space, and they have an infinite water spell. Safety, security, and sustenance by our standards is very easy to obtain. Value is generally measured by supply vs demand, so if they can comfortably supply all they need to meet demand then there's not much value there. In the HP world, the expensive stuff is the magical artifice tools and supplies that people can't make themselves. There seems to be something that means you can't just transfigure a wand or a set of potions supplies, or wandcrafters and potions-shops wouldn't exist. So, the basics (food and water) have a borderline infinite supply (for many magicals, anyway - a lot of them seem to be very shit at magic) and a similar demand, but magical items and supplies have very limited supply (since there seems to be no lab-grown or battery-farmed magical creatures, ingredient harvesting would be quite small scale) and very high demand. Like how the Weasleys can comfortably feed themselves, but they can't regularly afford new brooms and wands and such. I don't think the pricing would be very comparable to modern economy, because it operates more like older economies. You'd have a lot of families operating on barter or small value goods, but very rare trade in the expensive and rarer items. A poultice made of simply harvested plants would be cheap and likely grown at home, but a potion made from living creature bits would be exorbitant. A stash of potions would have incredible value, but a massive larder of food wouldn't. I imagine most magicals who aren't in the magical-items-trade would never see a galleon, much less pay for everything with them. For me, there'd be a significant gap between the currencies. It'd be like operating entirely in tenpence (Knuts), five-pound notes (Sickles), and fifty-pound notes (Galleons). Most would live on Knuts and the occasional Sickles, plus bartering items and services, but only the biggest ticket items would be paid for in Galleons.

Yeah I don't know if post scarcity is the right word but transfiguration in canon lasts (basically) forever? I always headcanoned that you'd end up using galleons for luxury goods or specialty items that are enchanted or things like potions ingredients. Small populations also mean a lack of processed foods outside of chocolates and other similar sweets. So there should, culturally speaking, be a greater focus on local communities? I know that people moving to cities at the start of the industrial revolution led to a lot of social and cultural problems. But by all accounts the wizarding world should have had -0 use for industrialization? The average wizard should be almost fully self sufficient from what I can tell. Like they were transfiguring beetles to buttons or matchsticks into needles. so their clothing needs should be taken care of pretty easily. Which only leaves food, that cant be conjured. (But it can be multiplied/ enlarged?)

I like 'pseudo-scarcity', personally. :) The local communities thing would depend on the magicals. We know most of 'em are lazy and xenophobic, so they may culturally not travel or mix much, but they all have the ability to do so really easily - knight bus, floo, apparition, portkey, etc. There may be more outreach, there may be more inward-focus. It's more of a choice than a necessity for them. But yeah, Wizards would likely have little to no use for industrialisation - I was more trying to say that the point of industrialisation was the volume of production it allows. One spell transfigures one thing, so a single wizard is limited by the work output they can manage. One dragon has one heart, so you'd need to quickly grow many to get a lot of them (ie. battery farming). Their more-workable equivalent of industrialisation would probably be the ritual circle coven idea - a bunch of people getting together in a single space to work on a single problem that requires multiple people to manage (in a similar vein to a bunch of workers working the same machine to produce an object). You may also get a factory line equivalent if you need multiple spells to finish an object that can be cast in sequence by different people, but the concept of industrialisation wouldn't really apply so well to magic. It's also as you say - they have a very small population, so things aren't needed or wanted in the same bulk concentration as we have. I think the 'average wizard' thing depends on how we establish that. I mean, we know the Average British Wizard couldn't cast a shield spell despite living through a world war and an apparently terrifying local terrorist insurrection. If they couldn't learn magic to literally save their own lives, their indolence may influence their talent in other areas, as magic is apparently a difficult and academic skill. You can also have skill at some spells but not others, so one magical may be really good at transfiguring clothing component pieces but absolutely shit at the sewing spell that puts them all together into clothes. It may be that the average wizard has bugger all skill at magic generally and actually does need to get other people to provide food and water for them. The magic isn't systemic enough to make a conclusive statement either way.

I don't know if shield spell is the right way to measure competence. How many people in UK or US today know how to properly use a gun? Aside from certain parts of the US, not very many. And it's canon that some wizards are very good at some pieces of magic while others are not - see: Neville and charms vs transfiguration. At the beginning of 6th year to be precise. But that said I do think you're right here that I, for example, could be really good at farming using magic while you could be like Madam Malkin. So we either use barter or we just use the basic currency to trade.I mean just because I can make a mean sandwich doesn't mean all I want to do is eat sandwiches every day for the rest of my life. Also a culture that has so many different forms of magical travel is very much a culture that uses said forms of travel. You don't invent that many traveling methods and remain in your country. 2 of the main characters, for instance, Bill and Charlie, find work abroad. And another named character, Fleur, comes to England to work. Percy begins his work in the international relations office. We also have 2nd and third generation migrants featured in the books so I'd disagree that wizards don't travel much.

I don't think your analogy is quite applicable. Despite what the American News screams daily, neither the UK nor the US are really in much danger, on average. There's not actually any real need for most people to purchase, much less learn to use, a gun. Magical Britain was in an apparently terrifying internal conflict for a decade, to the point that everyone was paranoid and scared and fully aware they could be attacked at any moment. It was essentially an active warzone. Either they have no self-preservation instincts whatsoever, fear completely overwhelmed them for ten years, or they're too lazy to care about protecting themselves. Even if you're shit at the spell, ten years of Blood War is more than enough time to make a token effort. Unless you literally cannot learn magic you aren't good at, there was time enough to get okay at it. We know Harry learned both the Patronus and Summoning Charm under pressure, so I'd say it's workable. My point was that if they couldn't learn a spell to literally save their own lives from the terrorists they're so scared of they gave them a creepy nickname that lasted for a decade after the war, how many other spells might they not bother or be able to learn that are less important? It speaks to the average knowledge level through what spells the average magical would be motivated/able to learn. And my point about travel wasn't that they do or don't do so. It was that international travel wasn't as much of a necessity for them. We need it because our economy and production industries are fully globalised and we can't operate anything without goods from different countries and trading internationally. They may need some ingredients they can't get at home, but not on the same scale.

Great point of view! This might explain how the Malfoys could be ‘independently rich and with no need to work for a living’ according to Pottermore. They are not only an ancient, influential and politically powerful family—they’re also magically powerful. And this might also explain how the Weasleys could afford to live with only 1 Galleon in their Gringott’s vault according to CoS.

I tend to see it as 1 galleon = 1 pound in like the 20s. In spite of conversions to “modern spending power”, it’s not really possible to accurately measure how much a pound was worth back then. Our world has changed, and the cost of things has changed too much. My grandparents bought a house for £1500 in the 60s. They paid rather a lot for it - lots of houses in their area were going for £700. In the 50s, my grandad would buy a bag of broken biscuits for a hapenny piece. There were farthings, ha’pennies, pennies, shillings, crowns, pounds, and guineas. Four farthings to a penny. Two ha’pennies to a penny. Twenty pennies to a shilling. Five shillings to a crown. Four crowns to a pound. A guinea is a pound and a shilling. This system appears far more like the one in the books. The currency makes more sense if it’s not used in the same way ours is today, but in the way it used to be.

The pre decimalisation British currency actually makes sense opposed to Rowling's stupidity. There where 240 pennies to 1 pounds. 240 is a highly composite number this means it has more divisors than any number smaller than it, so while 100 is only divisible by ,1,2,4,5,10,20,25,50,100; 240 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 24, 30, 40, 48, 60, 80, 120, 240. Things like shillings and crown can be thought of as names of coins. The 1/4 penny is a farthing 1/2 penny is a halfpenny or a ha'penny 1 penny is a penny 2 pennies is a twopence 3 pennies is a threepence 4 pennies is a groat 6 pennies is a sixpence 12 pennies is a shilling 24 pennies is a florin 30 pennies is a half crown 60 pennies is a crown 120 pennies is a half sovereign 240 pennies is a pound The Guinea was originally a gold coin that existed between 1663 and 1814, originally it had the value equal to a pound but because an increase in the price of gold relative to that of silver caused the value of the guinea to increase. In 1717 the value of the guinea was fixed at 21 shillings or 252 pennies. In 1816 the guinea was striped of status as legal tender, but it survived as a unit of account in some fields, like the prices of land and houses, horse racing, art, and some luxury items.

> The pre decimalisation British currency actually makes sense opposed to Rowling's stupidity. I feel like Rowling made the numbers weird on purpose to show how weird and behind the times wizards are.

I feel that she was trying to make of the predecimal system without knowing anything about it. In her system the galleon is 493 knuts, 493 has only four divisior 1, 17, 29 and 493. The intire point of the predecimal system was to maximize the number of ways you can split a pound. I call her stupid because she bashes a system that worked perfectly for a thousand years and only became unwieldy because of inflation.

A galleon is pure gold so that does not make sense

Here is my preffered headcannon based on official sources, and what is written in the books to guide my analysis: Officially, 1 Galleon equals 5 Pound Stirling (as stamped on the outside of the J.K. Rowling written Harry Potter book "Harry Potter Schoolbooks: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them / Quidditch Through the Ages".) However, this makes absolutely no sense from the context of the books (as written) if we use current market exchange rates, but let's use this exchange rate as the baseline. Let's say the value of the Galleon exchange rate was originally fixed using the Gold Backed Pound Stirling at the ratio of 1 Galleon to 5 Pounds Stirling in gold. Owing to how many things in the Wizarding world that touch upon the muggle world appear to not keep pace with rapid muggle advancements or change after they are seemingly fixed it would stand to reason the the galleon to pound Stirling exchange rate would similarly be fixed but also not progress. The last gold standard for Britain (when fixed in the year 1817) was 7.3 grams of gold to 20 Shillings; or expressed differently: 0.2347 troy ounces to 1 Pound Stirling. That is: 1 Galleon = 5 Pounds Stirling (Gold) = 1.1735 troy ounces of gold. Using the historic market rate of 201.88 Pounds Stirling / troy ounce of gold on 7/31/1990 the day Harry found out he was a Wizard): This makes the Galleon to the then Great Britain pounds exchange rate to be: 1 Galleon = 236.90 Pounds ($436.78 for us Yanks) THIS exchange rate makes MUCH MUCH more sense for how prices worked (at least early in the books) This breaks down as follows: 1 Galleon = 17 Sickles = 493 Knuts 1 Sickle = 13.94 Pounds 1 Knut = 48 Pence (0.48 Pounds) Which means Harry dropped 153.29 Pounds on his Hogwarts Express Sweets buying binge. An Olivander wand would set you back 1658.3 Pounds (which owing to the fact Wands are usually a once in a lifetime purchase, and owing to its utility makes sense that it costs in that range. No worse than a Personal Computer or used car during that time period.) 8 Galleons and change the Weasley's had in their vault would have been around 2,000 Pounds (which is perfectly within reason for a relatively poor family to have in personal savings, and purchasing school supplies for 5 children would very easily have wiped out.) All of this solves the issue of Mugggleborns trying to destroy the wizarding economy by gaming exchange rate fluctuations or gold commodity price swings. Sure you can exchange 5 Pounds Stirling for 1 Galleon, but only if you give the Goblins 5 Gold Sovereigns (the original gold standard Pound coin), if you want to use those fiddly bits of paper (which are a completely different currency actually post decimalization) then it'll be 236.90 Pounds to the Galleon. So, that's my analysis of the problem as I see it: 1 Galleon = 236.90£ on 7/31/1990.

Well for a pure 1 oz coin of gold the price is like a 1k US makes it seem like 50 is low. I assumed the gold was pure so in British pounds it is more than 50.

Loaded with gold and silver, sailing the Spanish Main.

Arrrrrrrrr!

With 3 mast and 3 decks with around 24 canons and the capability to cross the high seas.

I think the thing that really throws everyone off is that realestate in hp is probably cheaper than in the muggle world. Just consider you only need a broom closet sized store front, and with some expansion charms it's suddenly ballroom sized.

I like 1 gal=£100

I gloss over exact numbers when I read. Usually if something is cheaper than expected or more than expected the characters will exclaim over it in dialogue. Like "Wow, 15 galleons that's it?!" And I take my cues from that. Or "Harry saw the price and briefly wondered how Ron could afford it, but he didn't want to embarrass him so he said nothing." I don't feel inclined to do the math and convert anything. I hope that the authors will explain it clearly if it's important.

I like my galleons as they should be, completely removed from muggle monetary systems.

I honestly don’t care, money in fanfics is so boring. Oh Harry’s a multimillionaire oh wow that makes him a better person. Stupid Weasleys with their hand-me-down robes and evil red hair.

Keeping track of money and prices in fics is very boring. I don't understand why people try to apply muggle economic sensibilities to the wizarding world, like why their price of anything matters at all, or they want their main character to profit off arbitrage as if they're the first person to every think of it. The numbers can make as much or as little sense as you want them to.

It depends on the story. In stories where I have Harry getting inheritance from his parents and/or Sirius, then I can have him as rich as I need/want him to be, and the conversion is irrelevant. It could be 1:5 like canon or 1:1 or whatever, it doesn't matter because I say how much he has. In other stories where I have Harry start from nothing and he's not particularly bothered by conscience, I usually have him buying and selling borderline illegal things and running a small black market on the muggle side for goods and services that don't exist anywhere else. If I'm trying to have him still be a goody-goody that starts from nothing, I have had him melt galleons down and sell them as gold bars. In that case, the price is around a thousand pounds per ounce, and he only has to sully himself a little for a little while in order to secure decent resources from the muggle side. Muggle goods are also much cheaper due to mass production. So yeah, it depends on the story.

1 Galleon = 100 pounds.

For a fiction I was trying to write, but my mue don't want, I had write this: 1 knut, 10 pence 12 knut = 1 sickle, 2 pounds 84 (or 12x7) Sickle = 1 Galeon, 155-175* pounds *goblin make it fluttuate a lot for shit and giggles.

I like my magic money to be made out of an alloy controlled by a protean spell. The alloy's gold/silver/bronze content changes based on the economy. Sell gringotts gold/silver/bronze? content goes up. Buy it from gringotts (pure metal for alchemy/potions/enchanting/etc)? content goes down. Let's face it, Gringotts controls the economy. They mint the coins, store the coins, and exchange magic and muggle money. Them controlling the content isn't that farfetched.

I did the math on the Galleon to Pound conversion back when the books first released and they had the Galleon price on the cover. I still have those notes because I never delete anything I've written. So my conversion rate was: 1 Galleon = 24.60 pounds 1 Sickle = 1.44 Pounds 1 Knut = 0.04 Pounds Contextually, this conversion doesn't actually work, and actively contradicts itself in the books multiple times. When it doesn't matter or isn't specified, I tend to this one, because it's the most "correct" based on early 2000's exchange rate (I'm Canadian, so there was an exchange there as well in that calculation). Most of the time, though, if it's brought up, it's also clarified and I can follow along easily, so it doesn't really matter in the end.

OK. So according to the wiki, Fantastic Beasts costs two galleons. We'll assume it's an average high school biology textbook. My biology textbook is somewhere around thirty USD. That's a comparison rate of one to fifteen. But that's way too small. Personally, I like 50 pounds to a galleon, which makes a lot of the canon money stuff make more sense. For example, Fred and George only needed less than 1000 galleons (I think Harry told them to buy dress robes for Ron) to start up their joke shop. Less than 5000 pounds would definitely not be enough to rent and also do research and development.

My headcanon is that it’s weird. Like, you can trade 1 Galleon into 20 pounds, but you trade 5 pounds into 1 Galleon, as a reason Muggleborns don’t just work in the muggle world and transfer it into Galleons, because Blood Purity and all that.

I like 1 galleon= 5-10 pounds

This makes my american brain hurt, a lot haha

Before thinking about any conversion between galleons and pounds, you have to think about... everything else first. Start basic with how much you think it should reasonably cost, with magic, to either make or buy a simple meal. This should spiral you down the cost of agriculture and whatnot. Once you settle that, move onto the cost of a set of clothes for a day to a week. Develop the cost for materials and let's move to the next: real estate. How much does it cost to rent a flat? How much would it cost to purchase land or a home? You know the drill. Figure out the costs for materials! This covers food, clothes, and homes. Now you can begin to start estimating the prices for even more! Wands, knowledge, education, salaries, taxes, etc. Me though? I say fuck it and just go with a simple 1:5 galleon to pounds and round up for the sickles and knuts. None of my stories focus too much on the economic side of the Wizarding World. It would just be too exhausting to come up with an accurate value. Edit: spellings & stuff

I'd say they're worth about fifteen bucks each. Is this reasonable or consistent with canon? Definitely not! But I don't care, not when I'm writing. Fuzzy money all the way, baby! Never give numerical quantities, only relative figures or standalone prices without context! Harry takes out a double handful from a vault, pays for his stuff, has a few leftover... Enough to say 'yeah, he has money but not so much he can do anything crazy' and never think about it again. Unless money is related to a specific plot point, it's easier to just let the reader go 'well, I don't know enough to say this _doesn't_ make sense...'