MetaFic

You had them backwards, as you noted at the end. But the thing is, you're comparing the Prophet to the Times.

I've always envisioned it as a "rag" publication, somewhere between the National Enquirer and perhaps the magazine in the back of airplane seats. Useless, for the most part. Also, factor in that the magical world is a tiny fraction of the real world, so the number of pages and so on would be much smaller as well. Think of a town paper for one of those New England places. I've lived there, and I recall the paper being about 12 pages in total, with really, really inane stories to fill the space.

I have given up on any interpretation of any part of canon that requires the competent use of arithmetic or basic science. All of them are wrong. Number of students at Hogwarts, ages of the Black sisters, relative values of currency, etc., etc. It's enormously frustrating to a guy like me, who is so inclined to think in numbers.

Meanwhile, I will point out that applying consistent analogies to the value of currencies requires a consistent relative value in the different commodities one is discussing. This is the problem with translating the currency values used, say, in Jane Austen or Charles Dickens to the current day. The relative value of different things (food vs. annual income, furniture vs. books, etc.) are so radically different now that it's quite hard to see what the different figures really mean. Since the wizarding economy works very differently from ours (no industrial base, everything hand-made, many tasks performed by individuals themselves rather than hiring professioals, etc., etc) the comparisons are misleading.

Whether its Knut, Sikcle, or Galleon....they're all coins. Which you can imagine would weigh a ton, despite the fact they can shrink anything. Is there any paper money in magical money?

In the books, there's no paper money that I've seen. I've done it in a few of my stories (e.g. Rogue), having 101G, 251G, and 997G notes. I've always made the assumption (and I think a lot of others have too) that the money pouches are bigger on the inside than the outside, and that they have "featherweight" charms on them. The other common cliche (guilty at times) is the "Gringotts Credit Card". "Bank drafts" seem pretty reasonable, if you need random amounts of money or something for big purchases.

Also, a quick thinks to moshpit for correcting my reversal of the conversion. I really meant 1G to 5GBP everywhere.

Kevin

I hate to say it because my personality doesn't like it, but you're probably correct. The conversion probably can't be done meaningfully, no matter how much I'd like to be done. I am an "engineer" by trade and at heart; I like logic and order in "the universe". I do understand about consistent and relative value, which is why I did enough research to find out what a newspaper cost in London in the mid-1990's. I picked that because it was easy to compare. Moshpit's point about not comparing the DP to London Times but to a small town newspaper has some merit. OTOH, I live in a small town that has a weekly newspaper that might hit 10 pages if it's lucky. When I moved here in the late 90's, it was a quarter. Even small town rags have paper, ink, labor, etc. costs, even with advertising. So for the London Times to cost 20p (which seems pretty cheap to me), that seemed like a nice comparison.

Even in a magical work, they're not going to conjure paper, ink, the presses, etc, so some real goods are involved. That why I don't think they can charge 1 Knut (or 1p GBP) for a newspaper. Therefore, 1 Knut must be worth more, or else the money/ecnomics in the Wizarding world must be so "jacked", we can't make a comparison (which partially drives me up the wall. :-)

I suppose I should just pick up my Dublin Dr Pepper, take another drink, relax, and let the illogic go... :-)

Kevin

If I recall, that is what JK said it was in one of the suplimental books she wrote so its cannon.

This is a bit off topic from kb0's original post. I thought the wizard denominations were deliberately nonsensical, that Jo was satirizing the old British denominations. It gets lost on us Yanks but might be funny to those who had to use the old system. I found the following online to show what I mean...

"*Prior to 1971, a pound was divided into 20 shillings. Each shilling was divided into 12 pennies (also known as pence). For those of you who can't do the math, that's 240 pennies in a pound. A shilling, by the way, is called a bob in slang.
* A guinea was 21 shillings (or one pound, 1 shilling). In other words, 252 pence.
* A crown was worth 5 shillings. A half-crown was worth 2 shillings and 6 pence.
* A farthing is only worth a quarter of a penny, and a half penny…well, that’s self-explanatory."

That almost sounds like Hagrid's explanation to Harry. So yeah, a metric based money system is easier to understand.

Yeah, but this was real money! Those threppeny bits were the chunkiest money ever. And ten bob notes- when one fell out of a birthday card you were in the money.

Decimal money started appearing in 1968 when 2/- was made equal to 10p and 1/- equal to 5p.

Oh dear Lord, you lost me...

:-)

Even these days many people call 50p ten bob

Anyway at least back home we have different size notes

do you know how many times i've almost given a hundred dollar bill over instead of a ten ;o)

That's why some countries like Canada have each denomination of money a different colour--makes it very easy to keep it all straight. And a colourful purse/wallet as well ;) Even our $1 and $2 coins are different sizes and colours.

BTW, I agree with the comment about JKR possibly making fun of the old, confusing British money system. That's what I've always thought as well.

In Australia all the notes are different sizes as well as colours :D $1 and $2 are same colour but very different sizes.

I must admit I never thought so hard about the money in HP issue. I scratched my head big time over how much a chocolate frog might cost and ended up saying Ginny gave her a handful of coins lol.

That tends to be the best way. On the whole never give a price - just say something was cheap or expensive and have someone hand over the money. Not really worth bothering about, because thinking about money in the HP universe gives me a headache