Subject: Random Potterverse question: How much does a Galleon weigh?
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Posted on: 2016-10-14 20:28:00 UTC
And then, more to the point, how much would one thousand Galleons weigh? I need to know because a character in a fic I'm sporking drops a bag of 1,000 Galleons on Cornelius Fudge's desk. Naturally, my agents are inclined to steal it, and I'm wondering if they could even lift it unassisted.
~Neshomeh
A gold sovereign weighs around 8g. That means the bag would weigh 8kg, roughly 17 1/2 pounds. That's easily liftable - imagine picking up two cats (and then laugh at the mental image, because srsly) - but not something you want to wander around with.
Unless, of course, you have a magic weight-reducing bag. Doesn't Hermione cart one of those around?
I don't know how much a Galleon actually weighs, though - hence the approximation. A sovereign is an inch across; if it's twice that size, then you're talking four times the mass, and suddenly we're carting around 70 lb in one hand, which is apparently illegal if you're under 16. Also it's the weight of a medium-sized child.
So still doable.
hS
I must be imagining that gold is heavier than it is. I know it's heavier than it looks, but I have no notion of what that actually means in terms of the physics/math involved.
Apparently there was a bag of 1,000 Galleons mentioned in canon, which I had forgotten about: the Triwizard Cup Prize. And it seems Harry tosses it onto his bedside table without serious incident at some point, so it can't be too heavy.
This essay reckons a Galleon has a diameter of 19 millimetres (3/4 inch) and a thickness of 0.5 millimetres, with a mass of 1.98 grams. What do you think of their reasoning?
~Neshomeh has no head for numbers.
If it was me, I'd cast a lightening charm on the bag, just in case you're handing it out to, say, some skinny little herbert half-dead from going through a wizarding tournament and a fight with a demented terrorist. =]