The Value of the Galleon

I keep finding myself trying to translate Galleons into dollars so I can understand the background of the Potter novels.

In normal stories, when two people go out for sodas and the bartender charges them "two dollars" for the drinks, you know it's not a four-star restaurant, and when registration for a weekend class in motorcycle repair offered by the International Academy of Bikers costs $450, you know it's supposed to be a very valuable course, and you'd expect to get a certificate when you're done; if a class with the same title offered by your local bike shop costs $25, you assume it's not nearly as detailed or complex, and you'd be surprised if any certification were involved (unless it gave you 10% off on your next purchase there.)

But in the Potterverse, we (or at least I) lack that innate understanding of the money involved… when something costs "3 Galleons" or "11 Sickles," I don't quite know if that's minor pocket change or a trip to the bank; I have to stop to think about the value of the item being bought, the conversion between the three types of coins, and what those might translate to in "Muggle money."

"The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough."
—Hagrid, Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone

But what is a Galleon, other than "a gold coin used as currency by Wizards?" How much can you buy with it? How many Sickles or Knuts should you tip the pizza guy? We know that the Weasleys are incredibly poor, and the Malfoys are rich, but we're not told the annual income or discretionary spending budget of either. With a careful checking of the details in the books, we can speculate about day-to-day economics in the Wizarding world, and how valuable that thousand-Galleon prize really was.

For this essay, I'm going to talk in U.S. dollars, c. ~2005. I am not an economist; I know almost nothing about money in Britain, and am not going to try to translate one foreign money system to another. Also, I've rounded most prices in my estimates, to make it clear that they are estimates rather than exchange rates—a Galleon might be worth "about five dollars" or "about 73 dollars," but except when showing the equations I use, I don't say "three Galleons, or $221.85."

I'm going to start with the numbers, and a bit of math:

1 Galleon = 17 Sickles (1G=17S); 1 Sickle=29 Knuts (1S=29K)

So we get the incredibly useful and intuitive number of 493 Knuts to the Galleon, and suddenly the Wizardly respect for Arithmancy makes a lot more sense.

The equations: 29K=1S; 17S=1G; so 493K=1G

S * .0588 = G
K * .0345 = S
K * .0020 = G

What does that mean? Well, without a currency equivalent in Muggle terms, we don't know exactly… but we know that if a Knut is worth one cent, then a Sickle is worth under 20 cents. If a Knut is two cents, then a Sickle is about 60¢, and so on. Here's a table of possible values in Muggle terms:

GSK to Dollars Conversion Table

Knut	Sickle	Galleon
$0.01	$0.29	$4.93
$0.015	$0.44	$7.40
$0.02	$0.58	$9.86
$0.025	$0.73	$12.33
$0.03	$0.87	$14.79
$0.04	$1.16	$19.72
$0.05	$1.45	$24.65
$0.07	$2.03	$34.51
$0.10	$2.90	$49.30
$0.15	$4.35	$73.95
$0.20	$5.80	$98.60

Dollars to GSK Conversion Table

	1¢ Knut	1.5¢ Knut	2¢ Knut	2.5¢ Knut	3¢ Knut
$1.00	3S 13K	2S 9K	1S 21K	1S 11K	1S 4K
$5.00	1G 7K	11S 14K	8S 18K	6S 26K	5S 22K
$10.00	2G 14K	1G 6S	1G 7K	13S 23K	11S 14K
$25.00	5G 1S 6K	3G 6S 14K	2G 7S 3K	2G 14K	1G 11S 21K
$50.00	10G 2S 12K	6G 12S 27K	5G 1S 6K	4G 28K	3G 6S 14K
$75.00	15G 3S 18K	10G 2S 12K	7G 10S 9K	6G 1S 13K	5G 1S 6K
$100.00	20G 4S 24K	13G 8S 26K	10G 2S 12K	8G 1S 25K	6G 12S 27K
$250.00	50G 12S 2K	33G 13S 21K	25G 6S 1K	20G 4S 24K	16G 15S 10K
$500.00	101G 7S 4K	67G 10S 12K	50G 12S 2K	40G 7S 19K	33G 13S 21K
$1,000.00	202G 14S 8K	135G 3S 25K	101G 7S 4K	81G 2S 9K	67G 10S 12K

My guess is that a Knut is worth somewhere between two and five cents, a Sickle is worth between sixty cents and a dollar and a half, and a Galleon is worth 10-25 dollars. My estimates run to the low end of that (I'm very fond of the two-cent Knut), but I'd understand reaching a different conclusion from the same details.

I'm working from the assumption that Wizarding prices are comparable to Muggle ones—that rare luxuries cost more than what we think of as common necessities, that teenagers buying drinks at a pub aren't putting a noticeable dent in their families' finances, that school books may be a notable expense but even poor families are expected to be able to afford them.

I can't be entirely sure. Maybe dragon scales cost as little as black sheep's wool, because Wizards have plenty of access to dragons, but wool requires negotiating with Muggles. Maybe a thousand Galleons–the prize for an inter-school competition—is enough to buy a mansion, two hundred acres of land, and two dozen house elves, with the expectation that the winner will immediately purchase and inhabit one. But while these are possible, I don't use them for working premises; I assume that dragon parts cost more than chicken parts because dragons are dangerous, and that the prize value is enough to pay for the start of higher education, start a business, or travel to exotic lands, not enough to settle down for life with.

With that in mind, my main assumption is that the Knut is worth about two cents, the Sickle is worth about sixty, and the Galleon is worth a bit less than ten dollars. The prices mentioned in the books seem reasonable with those values, but I've tried to show what they'd be worth at other values as well.

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Back to the explanation of the numbers
Chamber of Secrets
Prisoner of Azkaban
Goblet of Fire
Order of the Phoenix
Half-Blood Prince

BACKGROUND: Philosopher's Stone

In all of these quotes, bold emphasis is added.

"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets." Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets — bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags... finally, Harry pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.
"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.

So five Knuts is a negligible amount, something you'd tip someone for bringing you the paper. That doesn't tell us much about it—except that a Knut is probably not the equivalent of twenty cents or more, because tipping someone a dollar for bringing the paper seems a bit unreasonable.

A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad...."

This tells us nothing about the value of a Galleon, because we don't have any idea how valuable dragon liver is. We just know that someone thinks seventeen Sickles an ounce is excessive. Also, we know that people will talk about Galleons in terms of Sickles: seventeen Sickles is one Galleon. As far as I know, nobody who uses dollars would say "a hundred cents an ounce, that's ridiculous" when discussing prices… but maybe Wizarding vocabulary doesn't have a way to say "a dollar twenty" or "three pounds six;" one might have to say "a Galleon and seven Sickles," so money might be counted aloud as 15 Sickles, 16 Sickles, 17 Sickles, 18 Sickles, and so on, instead of 15 Sickles, 16 Sickles, 1 Galleon, 1 Galleon and 1.

But we have learned something about the value of dragon liver—if Knuts are two cents each, that means she's saying "Dragon liver, $9.86 an ounce, they're mad…" a perfectly reasonable-sounding comment from someone looking at exotic materials. If dragon liver is comparable in value to (for example) salmon caviar, then $5-$7 an ounce is expected and $10 an ounce is pricey, but not bizarrely so… on the other hand, if it's comparable to saffron, which is $33/oz from bulk distributors, $60/oz by the five-gram bottle, or comparable to beluga caviar, which can sell from $100 or more per ounce, then 17 Sickles could be worth $75 or $100, and the Knut could be worth 15 or twenty cents.

Because of other comments, I don't think the latter is true, so I imagine that dragon liver is a minor delicacy or a somewhat exotic spice, rather than an extreme rarity. That makes sense in the context of "a random woman complaining in public about prices."

…silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and miniscule, glittery black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop)…

21 Galleons at two cents a Knut would be $207. That almost seems too cheap—but the store seems to have several of them; maybe they're expensive, but not too rare. Beetle eyes at 5 Knuts/scoop would be 10¢/scoop—and while we've got no idea of the value of beetle eyes, ten cents seems like a price you'd pay for something sold by the scoop, in a bin easily accessible to children. At five cents/Knut, the unicorn horns become almost $520, and the beetle eyes are 25¢ per scoop.

He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand…

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Ron has a secondhand wand because the Weasley's can't afford to get him a new one, and in Chamber of Secrets, he survives the whole school year with a broken wand. So seven Galleons is more than a poor family can afford to spend for each child, even only once. (We assume that Bill & Charlie bought their own when they got out of school.) By my estimates, 7G could be "about $70" (more than a poor family can afford every school year for nearly a decade), ranging up to "about $240" (enough to make even some well-off families think twice if they had a family the size of the Weasleys.)

Keep in mind that we don't know if all wands cost about 7 Galleons, or just Harry's. Other prices lead me to believe that either wands are incredibly cheap, or Harry's has been sitting around on the shelf so long that Olivander was willing to part with it for a bargain-basement price. Or maybe he was impressed by the whole Harry/Voldemort synchronicity, and wanted Harry to have that wand enough to lower the price to something he was sure Harry would pay.

What she did have were Bertie Bott's Every-Flavour Beans, Droobles Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, Pumkin Pasties, Cauldron Cakes, Liquorice Wands and a number of other strange things Harry had never seen in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

This is another real clue: Ron is impressed with Harry's bounty, but not overwhelmed by it… so 11 Sickles & 7 Knuts is a not-too-extreme amount for a kid to spend on candies & pasties. At 2¢/K, that's ~$6.50; at 3¢/K, it's ~$10; at 4¢/K, it's ~$13, and at 5¢/K, Harry spent about $16 on snacks. Any of those is an amount a modern 11-year-old could spend on candy and have some to share with a friend, but not so much that there's a mountain of candy left over.

Flaming Christmas puddings followed the turkey. Percy nearly broke his teeth on a silver Sickle embedded in his slice.

More real info. The coins in Christmas puddings are Sickles… which nudges the estimates down toward the lower end. (Does anyone bake dollar coins in holiday food?) Traditionally, a sixpence was used. I'm not sure what a traditional sixpence's value was… but I'm guessing it's not the modern equivalent of a buck and half. The two-cent Knut would have a sixty-cent Sickle, and while the thirty-cent Sickle would make more sense to me in this setting, I can't imagine the prices I've mentioned above being that low. (If the Sickle is worth about thirty cents, than Harry's wand only cost about $35… and I'd have trouble believing the Weasleys couldn't get Ron a wand of his own before his third year at Hogwarts.

Back to the explanation of the numbers

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ECONOMICS IN ACTION: Chamber of Secrets

Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, was today fined fifty Galleons for bewitching a Muggle car.

The 2¢ Knut makes this a $500 fine… about what you'd expect for a moderately serious infraction of a technical law that doesn't involve violence or life-threatening danger. At 5¢/K, it's over $1200—which seems excessive, because we know that while Arthur has a penchant for Muggle artifacts, he's not the criminal sort, and we can't imagine him breaking *important* laws. If the Knut is worth twenty cents, he was fined almost five thousand dollars!

"I'm quite surprised the Mudbloods haven't all packed their bags by now," Malfoy went on. "Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn't Granger—"

So five Galleons is an amount that the old-line rich kids feel comfortable risking (or claiming to risk) on a casual bet. I'm guessing this puts the Galleon at about $10 (the two-cent Knut I keep coming back to); but maybe Draco would be tacky enough to say "Bet you over a hundred bucks the next one dies." (That'd be 5¢/K.)

Back to the explanation of the numbers

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DISCRETIONARY INCOME: Prizoner of Azkaban

Knight Bus: "Listen, how much would it be to get to London?"
"Eleven Sickles," said Stan, "but for firteen you get 'ot chocolate, and for fifteen you get an 'ot-water bottle an' a toofbrush in the colour of your choice."

The 2¢K makes this just over a six dollar trip, with an extra dollar (plus) for each of the extras. The 5¢K makes it a $16 trip, and almost three dollars for each of the bonuses. I suppose which way I'd guess depends on what kind of hot chocolate it is, and whether it's one of those awful hotel toothbrushes.

Hermione: "I've still got ten Galleons," she said, checking her purse. "It's my birthday in September, and Mum and Dad gave me some money to get myself an early birthday present."

Ten Galleons for a birthday present, and the Weasleys couldn't afford seven for a wand for Ron! (There's something very slippery about the economics of the Potterverse.) In any case… Hermione will be turning 14 at this birthday, and I assume she's got between $50 and $240 to spend. Decide for yourself what you think her parents gave her.

Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office at the Ministry of Magic, has won the annual Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw.
A delighted Mr. Weasley told the Daily Prophet, “We will be spending the gold on a summer holiday in Egypt, where our eldest son, Bill, works as a curse breaker for Gringotts Wizarding Bank.” [snip]
from Ron's letter: I couldn't believe it when Dad won the Daily Prophet Draw. Seven hundred galleons! Most of it's gone on this trip, but they're going to buy me a new wand for next year.

So 700G is enough for a family trip to Egypt, and buying things like a new wand for Ron. And—most important—they don't feel compelled to spend that money on "necessities." The Weasley parents think they're doing fine, even if money's a bit tight. When you ask them what they're doing with the prize money, they give the Wizarding equivalent of "We're going to Disneyland!" rather than "we're fixing up things around the Burrow, buying the kids new outfits & wands, paying off that 50 Galleon fine we got last year…"

But we (or at least I) assume they are doing those things… so they must be inexpensive enough that the majority of 700 Galleons can be said to be spent on the vacation. At 2¢/Knut, they won almost $7,000, two-thirds of which would buy a family vacation and still leave money for catching up with necessities; at 5¢, the prize was over $17,000… which seems like a lot more than a poor family's vacation money; I'd expect them to announce they were adding a couple of rooms to the Burrow, rather mention the trip as the main answer to "what we'll do with our winnings."

Back to the explanation of the numbers

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WASTING MONEY: Goblet of Fire

"Oh ... go on then," said Mr. Weasley. "Let's see ... a Galleon on Ireland to win?"
"A Galleon?" Ludo Bagman looked slightly disappointed, but recovered himself.
"Very well, very well ... any other takers?"

A Galleon is an amount a cautious (but poor) businessman would bet to be sociable. A real gambler would sneer at it in most settings… but, to be polite, Ludo only looks disappointed and tries to find other takers. This fits nicely with the two-cent Knut; a $10 bet is about what a non-gambler risks in the office pool in order avoid being considered a "wet blanket."

"They're a bit young to be gambling," said Mr. Weasley. "Molly wouldn't like —"
"We'll bet thirty-seven Galleons, fifteen Sickles, three Knuts," said Fred as he and George quickly pooled all their money, "that Ireland wins - but Viktor Krum gets the Snitch. Oh and we'll throw in a fake wand."

Here's a major subplot of the book: how much did they risk? How much money had these two teenage boys managed to save up?

The Twins' Bet With Ludo Bagman

value of a Knut	The Weasley Twins' Bet
1¢	$186.79
2¢	$373.58
3¢	$560.37
4¢	$747.16
5¢	$933.95
7¢	$1,307.53
10¢	$1,867.90
15¢	$2,801.85
20¢	$3,735.80

I think they had just under $400, and they were confident of their Quidditch-betting skills to risk it all on a long shot specific bet. Bagman offered them "good odds" on "Ireland wins but Krum gets the snitch"—they were hoping to more than double their money. I think their father would've hit the roof if they'd bet over $900, which is what would have been the case if a Knut's worth five cents.

re: the fake wand: "Excellent! I haven't seen one that convincing in years! I'd pay five Galleons for that!"

Remember: Harry's wand cost 7 Galleons. (Maybe phoenix feather wands aren't worth as much as dragon heartstring wands. Maybe his, being a brother to Voldemort's, was sitting on the shelf for 20 years and Olivander wanted to get rid of it. Harry's wand does seem underpriced for the rest of the Potterverse.) We can assume Bagman's exaggerating, being willing to consider it as 5 Galleons for the purpose of a bet he has no intention of losing or paying. But it means that 5G is a *reasonable* exaggeration… that while it might only be worth a third of that, people wouldn't be shocked to think of a joke wand costing 5 Galleons, even if they thought it was expensive.

2¢ Knut: It's a $50 wand according to Bagman, maybe $17 (2 Galleons?) for real people in a joke shop; if Knuts are at the high end of my estimate possibilities, Ludo claims he'd pay $125 for a wand that turns into a rubber rat. I don't think so.

"Omnioculars," said the saleswizard eagerly. "You can replay action ... slow everything down ... and they flash up a play-by- play breakdown if you need it. Bargain - ten Galleons each."

Ten Galleons is a lot of money. Hermione's birthday money, and more than the cost of a wand. But a hundred dollars for a good pair of binoculars for a celebrity sports game isn't extreme, and that's what the 2-cent Knut would make these. Being aware of this cost makes Ron's objections and "I'll pay you back" protests more sensible… how many impoverished fourteen year olds can casually accept a hundred-dollar gift, even from a good friend?

"…An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money."

Here's one of the key issues: How much is that prize money really worth? Is a thousand Galleons enough to buy a new set of high-fashion robes, enough to buy a racing broom, enough to buy a house? Is it a week's wages, a month's wages, or a year's wages or more? We know the Weasleys are very impressed by the amount—but would it be enough to even interest Draco?

I don't have an answer. I just have my nice little chart. With the two-cent Knut, the prize is almost ten thousand dollars… enough to start a new life somewhere on a shoestring, enough to start a business (especially if you're frugal, and the Weasley twins are certainly that), enough to take a large family on vacation to a foreign land and have plenty left over for wild parties. If Knuts are worth 5 cents each, the prize money is over $24,000… and I think everyone (teachers, especially) would pester Harry about what he did with it. $10,000 is just low enough that a student who says "I put it into the bank for after I graduate" wouldn't get hounded for details.

re: S.P.E.W.: "I thought two Sickles to join - that buys a badge - and the proceeds can fund our leaflet campaign…." [snip] True, both of them had paid two Sickles for a S.P.E.W. badge, but they had only done it to keep her quiet.

I like the small-money details they make it much easier to figure things out. Two Sickles is pocket change for teenagers; even Ron can afford two Sickles to get his friend to shut up. This should be between $1.15 and $3. Badges are one of the few things mentioned that have an equivalent in the Muggle world… badge-making parts start at about 50 cents each if you've got access to a machine to put them together.

"Canary Creams!" Fred shouted to the excitable crowd. "George and I invented them - seven Sickles each, a bargain!"

Not pocket change. But not out of teenage price range, either. $4 at the low end of my preferred scale; $10 at the high end, and $30 if Knuts are the ridiculous amount of 15 cents each.

"And so Dobby is a free elf, sir, and Dobby gets a Galleon a week and one day off a month!" "Professor Dumbledore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week, and weekends off," said Dobby, suddenly giving a little shiver, as though the prospect of so much leisure and riches were frightening,…

A Galleon a week is obviously only a token, no matter how much a Galleon is worth. And so is one day off a month. But apparently, Dobby is very happy with it, and we don't expect him to follow human standards.

The offer of ten Galleons a week must be much less than "minimum wage," whatever that is in the Wizarding world. At 2¢/Knut, it's almost $100/week…a mere pittance, and an insult to any normal waged employee. But Dobby doesn't work to get paid; he works because he loves it… he wants to get paid as a mark of respect, not because he cares about income. $100/week is what many teenagers are paid for after-school babysitting jobs—the amount offered for "easy and fun" work to someone whose physical needs are taken care of; the amount offered to someone who has never had an income and needs to slowly get used to budgeting.

The higher estimate—5 cents/Knut—would make Dumbledore's offer $240/week. That's real money; poor families live on that. And while I don't doubt Albus' generosity, even to a house elf, I think he'd be aware that it was much more than Dobby could handle, and he would have tailored his offer downward.

Back to the explanation of the numbers

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COMPARISONS: Order of the Phoenix

"Well, as everyone thinks I'm a mad mass-murderer and the Ministry's put a ten thousand Galleon price on my head, I can hardly stroll up the street and start handing out leaflets, can I?" said Sirius restlessly.

Harry found himself staring once more at the pictures of the ten escaped Death Eaters. The poster, "By Order of the Ministry of Magic", offered a thousand-Galleon reward to any witch or wizard with information leading to the recapture of any of the convicts pictured.

Sirius, as the One Who Got Away first, is worth 10,000 Galleons to the ministry, while the recent escapees are worth one-tenth that amount No wonder he's feeling stir-crazy. I'm rather surprised that Mundungus hasn't turned him in. $98,000 is a tempting amount for honest folks, and several of the Order's assistants are anything but.

"Headless Hats!" shouted George, as Fred waved a pointed hat decorated with a fluffy pink feather at the watching students. "Two Galleons each, watch Fred, now!"
Fred swept the hat on to his head, beaming. For a second he merely looked rather stupid; then both hat and head vanished.

The Canary Creams from the last book were only 7 Sickles… but they work once. The Headless Hats work many times. (Not "forever;" we remember that their charmed badges wore out rather quickly.) About half a Galleon ($4, with the two-cent Knut) for disposable pranks, two Galleons ($20 or so) for re-usable ones seems very reasonable.

"If you want to add your name to the waiting list, Hermione, it's five Galleons for your Basic Blaze box and twenty for the Deflagration Deluxe…"

These are also expendable… but they're very elaborate one-shots. The Basic Blaze seems to be about $50—something a teen could afford, but outside of casual purchase range, although a higher base Knut would make them as much as $125… still within the range of teenagers (I know of plenty of teens with iPods).

The Deflag Deluxe is obviously not intended for the teen market at all, but for adult-sponsored festivities. Twenty Galleons might be as low as a couple of hundred dollars… or as high as half a thousand. By even making such a package, the twins are showing that they're considering this a full-range business: not just a joke shop for kids, but an entertainment supply shop for all sorts of festivities.

"Three Butterbeers, please," said Hermione.
The man reached beneath the counter and pulled up three very dusty, very dirty bottles, which he slammed on the bar. "Six Sickles," he said.

2 coffees at Madam Puddifoots: He threw a Galleon down on to the table, shook pink confetti out of his hair, and followed Cho out of the door.

So Butterbeers are two Sickles each; that's somewhere between $1.15 and $3, depending on what you believe about the exchange rate. In any case, it's small change, the same amount Hermione wanted for S.P.E.W. membership. We can assume these are cheap Butterbeers—that they might cost a bit more in a nicer, cleaner place.

We don't know what the coffees actually cost; Cho storms out, and Harry throws down some money and chases after her. But if Butterbeers are only two Sickles, paying seventeen Sickles for coffees—even in a fancy valentine shop—is excessive; it's like throwing a ten-dollar bill on the table to cover a couple of canned sodas. This shows that Harry really doesn't care about money, and may not even really understand Wizarding money values. A few more incidents like this, and he'll rival Draco for casual spending.

She gave the delivery owl a Knut and unfolded the newspaper eagerly …

Back in the Philosopher's Stone (Sorcerer's Stone in the U.S.), Hagrid gave an owl 5 Knuts for a paper, and here Hermione gives only one. I wonder if this is the special student discount rate… two cents seems a ridiculous amount to pay for anything, and even five cents seems miniscule. We've got no way to tell if she's paying for the paper itself, or just the delivery.

Knight Bus, travel from Grimmauld Place to Hogwarts: As Harry and Ron handed Stan eleven Sickles each, the bus set off again, swaying ominously.

Same price as from Little Whinging to London. Maybe it's about the same distance, or maybe 11 Sickles is a standard fare on the Knight Bus. Still, it says something that Ron isn't complaining about the cost, more than half a Galleon… maybe that 700 Galleon prize money did more for the family than we realized, or maybe having the twins pay for their own extravagances at school has greatly increased Molly & Arthur's spending money, and Ron and Ginny are getting more pocket change now. Two books ago, Ron wouldn't have the $6.50-to-$16 to spare.

Back to the explanation of the numbers

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FILTHY STINKING RICH: Half-Blood Prince

"Is this necklace for sale?" she asked, pausing beside a glass-fronted case.
"If you've got one and a half thousand Galleons," said Mr. Borgin coldly.
"Oh... er... no, I haven't got quite that much," said Hermione, walking on. And... what about this lovely... um... skull?"
"Sixteen Galleons."

It must be very expensive, one-of-a-kind jewelry to sell for somewhere between fourteen and thirty-seven thousand dollars. No wonder Borgin was frosty at a 16-year-old girl he'd never seen before. While he might not recognize every face that enters his store, he can certainly spot "scruffy teen, probably muggleborn, has never handled more than thirty Galleons in a single day." Even the skull is outside of the range of casual purchase… $150 at the low estimate, almost $400 at the high end. Too much for someone who obviously doesn't even know what it is.

Re: Advanced Potions Making book: "I'll give Slughorn back the new one, he can't complain, it cost nine Galleons."

That's $89 for a high school textbook! Wow! (Or, with the 5¢ Knut, $220.) No wonder the Weasleys have money problems. Even for an "advanced placement" class, that's a hefty amount. However, since the book has been in production for over fifty years, maybe it's expected that many students will be using secondhand copies.

Re: the Slytherin necklace: "She didn't seem to have any idea how much it was worth. Happy to get ten Galleons for it. Best bargain we ever made!"

Considering that the Slytherin locket must be more valuable than anything he'd keep displayed for the general public, like the necklace that Hermione asked about… Burke must have been incredibly unscrupulous to offer just under $100 for something he intends to resell for $14,000 or more. He must also be incredibly perceptive, to recognize the desperation that drive Merope—to know she was so incoherent and depressed that she wouldn't realize she could probably sell it on the street to a random stranger for two or three times that, and that searching for an interested buyer could probably get her a couple hundred Galleons—not its full worth, but a normal "pawnshop" sale.

a twelve-week course of Apparition Lessons from a Ministry of Magic Apparition instructor. Please sign below if you would like to participate. Cost: 12 Galleons.

This time, Ron doesn't even blink at the cost. We don't know if the Weasleys are now well-off enough to casually absorb this expense, or if it's part of sixth-year school expenses that they've always budgeted for. At $120, it's a reasonable price for a government-sponsored course; even at nearly $300, it would be comparable to the Muggle world's driver training classes.

"Mr. Burke would like to make an improved offer for the goblin-made armor," said Voldemort. "Five hundred Galleons, he feels it is a more than fair —"

We've already seen what Burke thinks about "fair" buying practices. However, in this case, he's buying from someone who has an idea of the actual worth of the item, so he's offering almost $5000 (with the 2¢ Knut) or maybe $8500 (a bit more than 3¢/K), or more than $12,000 (5¢/K). In the modern world, a suit of medieval armor in good shape could easily sell for more than that—it's reasonable to assume that Burke was trying to get museum-quality pieces for garage-sale prices.

re: Acromantula venom: ". . . seems an awful waste not to collect it... might get a hundred Galleons a pint. ... To be frank, my salary is not large. . . ."

In this example and the next, we see Slughorn's greed… and gain an awareness of the value of exotic potions ingredients. Acromantula venom at over $975/pint is obviously either very rare, or very hard to obtain, or both. (Considering Aragog's nature & defenses, both seem possible.)

100 Galleons/pint = 50 Galleons/cup = 6.25 Galleons/fluid ounce (6G, 4S 7K) = .781Galleons/dram (13S, 8K)
A bit more that $7.50 for 1 1/3 teaspoons of venom… that makes it comparable with Muggle medicinal ingredients in their pure form. I'm not sure what cobra venom sells for in the scientific labs, nor what insulin costs for hospitals (as opposed to what they charge the customers); those would be the kinds of items to compare costs with.

And keep in mind the prices for the smaller amounts would probably be higher—spices that you can buy for $12/lb often sell for $3/oz; the extra trouble of measuring & packaging the smaller amount brings the price up.

Hagrid became tearful again and pressed the whole unicorn tail upon Slughorn, who pocketed it with cries of, "To friendship! To generosity! To ten Galleons a hair!"

Now we have our first obvious real problem in the pricing scales in the Wizarding world. Slughorn thinks unicorn hairs are worth almost $100 each (or $240 each with the higher-value Knut), but we know Harry's wand only cost 7 Galleons—about $70. Are unicorn hairs really that much more valuable than phoenix feathers? Or does one hair make several wands? Or are the wands made from mane hairs, and tail hairs are more valuable?

I'm trying to avoid the "cheat" speculation of assuming that the author assigned a price for Harry's wand back in Philosopher's Stone before she'd really thought about how much a Galleon was worth, and without the expectation that fans would comb through the books comparing every single price described. Good fanon requires strict adherence to canon—if the price in the book was 7 Galleons, then Harry's wand cost 7 Galleons; we can be as wild as possible in our speculations (perhaps the Ministry subsidizes first-wand purchases?), but we cannot offer "author error" as a reasonable basis for apparent inconsistencies in story details. (No matter how much it looks that way.)

There are other possibilities… One is that the unicorn hairs in wands are only from domestic unicorns which are raised for that purpose, and hair from wild unicorns is much more valuable. Another is that the hairs used for wands only comes from (pick a category) male or female or young or old (or whatever) unicorns, who shed a lot, and Hagrid's collection is from a wider range of types than that. But in any case, it does raise questions about the cost of wands in the Potterverse.

Then again, maybe Harry's wand was marked down because of the connection to Voldemort, and Ron's replacement wand in third year cost twenty-five Galleons. We can speculate about prices and values, but we really don't have enough details to make any absolute conclusions.

These are my speculations and ponderings—the two-cent Knut, the dollar-twenty Butterbeer, the $10,000 prize for the Tri-Wizard Tournament. I hope this is a useful resource for fanfic authors trying to put realistic prices in their stories; even if they disagree with my conclusions, I've provided tables that should make it easy to keep their monetary values consistent with canon.