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[Felix the Cat]

Ever wondered what those 10 platinum statues in the king's throne room are worth in today's dollars? Well, I've done some calculations.

Assumptions:
-The density of a human is approximately the density of water, so I assumed that a human is exactly as dense as water. (This makes sense. People are slightly more dense than pure water, but less dense than salt water. This is why you float in the ocean but sink in the pool.)
-I assumed that a dwarf is half as large as a human, meaning half the volume. For those interested, an average adult human (175 pounds) is about 80L. Thus, a dwarf has a volume of 40L.
-I assumed that statues are indeed statues of full-sized dwarves.

Without further ado, here are the values.

Platinum (current market price $813.20/troy oz): $22,344,784.32
Gold ($700.80/troy oz): $17,384,661.50
Electrum (assumed 1/2 gold and 1/2 silver): $8,777,199.94
Silver ($12.59/troy oz): $169,738.38
Copper ($3.283/lb): $2,588.58
Bronze ($3.05/lb): $2,227.72
Steel/Iron ($589.73/short ton): $1,858.83
Brass ($2.26/lb, assumed 1/2 zinc and 1/2 copper): $1,740.20

These are, of course, just the values of the materials in the statue... so we'll say that they are the values of basic quality statues (no modifier).

When we kick in the modifiers... wow. A masterpiece platinum statue is worth $268,137,411.84! Yes, that's almost three hundred million dollars. If you sold just one at market price, you'd be able to defend yourself quite well against the goblin sieges... say, with a squadron of F-16s? You'd be able to buy 8 or 9 of them at around $30 million each!

If you get lucky, maybe a metalsmith will get a strange mood and produce an artifact platinum statue. He'd be worth having "indoor plumbing" installed in his room - his statue would be worth over $2.6 billion. That's greater than the gross domestic product of Montenegro.

Just thought some might find this interesting.

[Bluefire]

This is interesting. The wiki says that 10 basic quality platinum statues are enough to make the king happy. Greedy bastard, he's richer than some third world countries! Also, in the fantasy setting I imagine DF to be in(DND), dwarves are shorter but much stouter than humans, so they(and their statues) are about the same size as humans.

[ September 08, 2007: Message edited by: Bluefire ]

[Asehujiko]

Which would make artifacts worth 5.2 billion from the start. And when they get more detailed, they can make statues of elephants.

[a1s]

quote:Originally posted by Felix the Cat:
<STRONG>If you get lucky, maybe a metalsmith will get a strange mood and produce an artifact platinum statue. He'd be worth having "indoor plumbing" installed in his room - his statue would be worth over $2.6 billion. That's greater than the gross domestic product of Montenegro.</STRONG>

there's just one problem with this scheme*- no man on earth could afford that statue. so you'd probably just have to sell it for the 300M like the other masterworks. That's market economy for you.

______________________________________________________
* driving a metalsmith insane, and then killing him? it's a scheme alright.

[Sappho]

Actually, there are people who could afford that.  Not many people, since 5% of the world's population holds 90% of the wealth on the planet - but those people could easily afford a whole fortress full of those statues.

Starving children?  What starving children?  By the way, did you happen to notice my masterwork platinum statue...

[Zaratustra]

I suppose precious metals are undervalued within dwarven society - after all, they're practically buried in the stuff. (literally, when there's a cavein)

[Rondol]

Aside from that, when there's such a minuscule amount of something available, and there's no "mass market" to consolidate prices, those statues would literally have no value at all. That guy over in the human kingdom over there, the king with all those billions and billions of gold coins, he might not even know what platinum IS, let alone know that you have a statue of it for sale. You'd never move the thing. So it's only real value is in how pretty it is. I don't think a dwarf would go up to it and go "Man! That thing's gotta be worth at least a trillion dollars!"

...By the way... if you're going to go into this kind of detail, you ought to figure out the modern value (sans "historical value") of the coinage.

[Spiratu]

Of course, if those values are correct, it does mean that one peasant hauler is capable of lugging a 1900-pound statue halfway across the fortress.  No wonder he gets stuck under it afterwards!

[Felix the Cat]

quote:Originally posted by Rondol:
<STRONG>Aside from that, when there's such a minuscule amount of something available, and there's no "mass market" to consolidate prices, those statues would literally have no value at all. That guy over in the human kingdom over there, the king with all those billions and billions of gold coins, he might not even know what platinum IS, let alone know that you have a statue of it for sale. You'd never move the thing. So it's only real value is in how pretty it is. I don't think a dwarf would go up to it and go "Man! That thing's gotta be worth at least a trillion dollars!"

...By the way... if you're going to go into this kind of detail, you ought to figure out the modern value (sans "historical value") of the coinage.</STRONG>

Sure... coinage would require some more assumptions.

What's the volume of a DF coin? Do all coins have the same volume, regardless of material?

Some random calculations:
-If you assume that a coin has the same diameter as a US quarter but twice the thickness, the volume is .981cm^3. For ease of calculation, we can assume that it's slightly larger and is exactly 1cm^3.
-Value of the material in one coin would thus be:
Platinum: $558.62
Gold: $434.62
Electrum: $219.43
Silver: $4.24
Copper: $0.07

[BurnedToast]

I think you went about it the wrong way. we know that a statue weighs as much as a dwarf (in says so in game) so why figure out density at all? we know that a dwarf and a statue weigh the same, 300 units.

So lets take your value, and say dwarves weigh half as much as men. (no dead humans in my game atm). Average human male weight is roughly 180 pounds, so average dwarven weight should be around 90 pounds.

so, at 14.58 troy ounces per pound, and using your value of $813.20 per troy ounce, the platinum statue is worth 90*14.58*813.20 = 1,067,081.04 or just over a million bucks. Not as impressive as your figure, but still pretty valuable. Looking around, I find the price is actually more like $1300 USD/ounce which would give us something like 1.3 million bucks (too lazy to figure it out exactally).

Incidentally, platinum is VERY heavy, a 1 foot cube weights roughly 1,330 pounds. That means your 90 pound 1 million+ dollar statue is using very roughly about as much metal fits in a five inch cube  :p

[JT]

I think the easiest way is to assume that the statues are just metal plates built onto a wire frame of some less valuable metal.

E.g., the Statue of Liberty, if it were solid copper, would be worth an exorbitant amount.  But she's just copper plates on an iron frame.

[TheSpaceMan]

Another point of intresset. A value of a metal is also connected to how usual it is. Spain floored the prince of gold when they killed and plunderd the Incas.

Current day economics wouldn't quite suffice. And the value of metal in game should shift over time.  

[Felix the Cat]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>I think you went about it the wrong way. we know that a statue weighs as much as a dwarf (in says so in game) so why figure out density at all? we know that a dwarf and a statue weigh the same, 300 units.

So lets take your value, and say dwarves weigh half as much as men. (no dead humans in my game atm). Average human male weight is roughly 180 pounds, so average dwarven weight should be around 90 pounds.

so, at 14.58 troy ounces per pound, and using your value of $813.20 per troy ounce, the platinum statue is worth 90*14.58*813.20 = 1,067,081.04 or just over a million bucks. Not as impressive as your figure, but still pretty valuable. Looking around, I find the price is actually more like $1300 USD/ounce which would give us something like 1.3 million bucks (too lazy to figure it out exactally).

Incidentally, platinum is VERY heavy, a 1 foot cube weights roughly 1,330 pounds. That means your 90 pound 1 million+ dollar statue is using very roughly about as much metal fits in a five inch cube   :p</STRONG>

Because a statue of a dwarf has to be the same size as a dwarf, not the same weight as the dwarf.

Game weights are wonky; there are situations where you put in 300 units of materials and get 400 units back.

[Asehujiko]

Cutting somebody to pieces makes them heavier as well.

[Fieari]

Of course, there's no guarantee that a "Platinum Statue" is SOLID Platinum.  It could be a shell.

I'd rather work in terms of weights... but yeah, those are quite wonky indeed.