This clever fan tried to calculate how much money Harry Potter has in his Gringotts vault
Just how many Galleons are stashed away in Vault 687 – and how many pounds is the boy wizard really worth?
It's no secret that Harry Potter is a wealthy man. Heck, he was a wealthy 11-year-old – who didn't read Harry Potter and sigh with jealousy when he walked into that vault at Gringotts and saw the mass of coins bequeathed to him?
But exactly how rich is the boy wizard? He's got enough cash to splash out on the entire Hogwarts train trolley – but how many of his Galleons are being guarded by the goblins? One brave fan has attempted to calculate. Grab a notebook and pen folks, this is about to get complicated...
Reddit user NeokratosRed has identified the best marker of Harry's wealth as the footage of Vault 687 shown in the first movie, the Philosopher's Stone. He screenshotted it here:
It shows all the Galleons that belong to Harry – but instead of counting them individually, NeoKratosRed has estimated by measuring the width, depth and height of the main pile, before adding the coins at the side as seen here...
... and here:
More like this
Here are the measurements for the main pile.
Because the shape resembles a pyramid, the formula – now this will take you back to GCSE maths – is area of base x height x 1/3. So, 25 x 30 x 75, divided by 3 = 18,750.
But the pile of coins to the right of the main stash suggest this total is actually a lot bigger.
As NeoKratosRed explains: "we can see [in the image above], the base of our pyramid seems to be at the same level of the pile of coins on the right, so from this picture we can assume that our pyramid is AT LEAST 35 Galleons higher with a base that is AT LEAST THE SAME as ours, so if we want to keep things as low as possible we can assume a shape like this one...
"That added to our original count brings the number of Galleons of the central pile to 18,750 + (35 x 30 x 25) = 45,000."
Now for estimating the shape of the right-hand pile...
And therefore its volume: 5 x 10 x 35, divided by 2 = 875.
And finally – yes, we are nearly there. Stay with us – on the left, there are actually two piles (although only one is in focus).
That gives us 10 x 10 x 25, divided by 2 = 1,250 Galleons.
These Galleons are at the same height as the base of the main pyramid, so we need to add an additional 35 layers and multiply them by the base (10 x 10).
So... 1,250 + (10 x 10 x 35) = 4,750.
So, the minimum number of Galleons contained in Harry's vault is 45,000 + 875 + 4,750 which equals 50,625.
Now, NeoKratosRed has used an estimation of roughly $25 per Galleon, coming out with a total of $1,265,625 or £870,922, but that's significantly higher than Rowling's conversion which has one Galleon equal to £5 (or $7.20).
It's worth bearing in mind that she gave that figure back in 2001, and added that "the exchange rate varies". But taking it at face value, Harry would be worth £253,125 (or $367,828) in 2001. You'd struggle to buy a measly bedsit in London suburbia with that these days but it's still a small fortune for an 11-year-old.
Kudos to NeoKratosRed who didn't get to sleep till 2am thanks to all those calculations. And reader, if you got your head around all that, give yourself a pat on the back.
