Template:Money/About

The Money templates are used to provide formatting and quick conversion estimates for how much any amount of wizarding money is worth in our money today.

From an in-universe point of view, the conversion is based on Albus Dumbledore's forewords to the muggle editions of Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, where he writes that Comic Relief has raised £174 million so far (or $250 million in the U.S. edition), and that this is equivalent to 34 million Galleons, or exactly "thirty-four million, eight hundred and seventy-two Galleons, fourteen Sickles and seven Knuts" in the latter.

Again, from an in-universe point of view, the forewords must presumably have been written before his death on 30 June 1997, with their Comic Relief having raised that much by that time, and the exchange rates given being fixed at that time. Since beyond this there is neither an indication when he is supposed to have written them, nor what any other foreign currencies were worth at that time (let alone what they have been since then), we have to work the exchange rates out another way.

In reality, J. K. Rowling wrote the books right after finishing Goblet of Fire (which was released on 8 July 2000), and published them on 12 March 2001&mdash;four days before Comic Relief.

The £174m figure had been floating around for at least a few months before, and by looking at the exchange rates we find that that figure was worth $250m on a few occasions between July 2000 to March 2001, especially in the final months of 2000.

Using Oanda, a reliable site that contains data for just about every currency we could ever need, we find that on 22 September 2000 the ask rate for £1 was $0.6960&mdash;exactly the right figure, a good enough reason to use the site for all the exchange rates at the time.

But as we know, currency values don't stand still (remember "the exchange rate varies!") ), and as Magical money isn't tied with a fixed exchange rate to any of the muggle currencies, the safest way is to use the fixed in time conversion rates above, and then work out how much each of these is worth in today's money by using inflation figures (and where better than the World Bank to get the data, which has yearly consumer inflation rates for nearly every currency?).

As a result the conversion rates are only valid in comparison to the amount of Wizarding money, not in relation to each other. This sometimes leads to the strange side effect of an amount of Wizarding money being worth more in what is by today's exchange rate a less valuable currency; the more different the two currencies' rates of inflation, the more marked the difference.

Currencies
As there is a question of which currencies to include in the tables and allow approximate values for in the money template, the following guideline has been drawn up. Please discuss this on the talk page.
 * 1) Readers' currencies:
 * 2) British pounds (first, as per policy, as the currency of the books' country's setting, and as the currency Comic Relief fund-raised the £174m in)
 * 3) United States dollars
 * 4) Canadian dollars
 * 5) Australian dollars
 * 6) Ireland - Euros
 * 7) New Zealand dollars
 * 8) South African rand
 * 9) Other important currencies:
 * 10) Euro (see also 1.5 Ireland; for point 1 as well)
 * 11) Arguably the other major non-Euro European currencies as well (for point 1 as well)
 * 12) Swiss franc
 * 13) Scandinavia:
 * 14) Danish krone (see also 3.23 Greenland)
 * 15) Finland - Euro
 * 16) Icelandic króna
 * 17) Norwegian krone
 * 18) Swedish krona
 * 19) Japanese yen
 * 20) Chinese yuan
 * 21) Currencies of :
 * 22) Albanian lek*
 * 23) Argentine peso
 * 24) Armenian dram
 * 25) Assyria (Iraqi dinar could be used)
 * 26) Australia (see 1.4 Australian dollars)
 * 27) Bangladeshi taka
 * 28) Belgium (see 2.1 Euro)
 * 29) Indonesian rupiah (Borneo)
 * 30) Brazilian real
 * 31) Bulgarian lev
 * 32) West African CFA franc (Burkina Faso; see also 3.54 Togo)
 * 33) Burmese kyat
 * 34) Canada (see 1.3 Canadian dollars)
 * 35) China (see 2.3 Chinese yuan)
 * 36) Central African CFA franc (Republic of Congo)
 * 37) Egyptian pound
 * 38) England (see 1.1 British pounds)
 * 39) Ethiopian birr
 * 40) Fijian dollar
 * 41) France (see 2.1 Euro)
 * 42) Germany (see 2.1 Euro)
 * 43) Greece (see 2.1 Euro)
 * 44) Danish krone (Greenland; see also 2.2.2.1 Danish krone)
 * 45) Hungarian forint*
 * 46) Indian rupee
 * 47) Iranian rial
 * 48) Ireland (see 1.5 Ireland, and 2.1 Euro)
 * 49) Italy (see 2.1 Euro)
 * 50) Japan (see 2.3 Japanese yen)
 * 51) Swiss franc (Liechtenstein; see also 2.2.1 Swiss Franc)*
 * 52) Lithuanian litas*
 * 53) Luxembourg (see 2.1 Euro)
 * 54) Mauritian rupee
 * 55) Mongolian tögrög
 * 56) Nepalese rupee
 * 57) New Zealand (see 1.6 New Zealand dollars)
 * 58) Nigerian naira
 * 59) Northern Ireland (see 1.1 British pounds)
 * 60) Norway (see 2.2.2.4 Norwegian krone)*
 * 61) Pakistani rupee
 * 62) Papua New Guinean kina
 * 63) Peruvian nuevo sol
 * 64) Polish złoty*
 * 65) Portugal (see 2.1 Euro)
 * 66) Romanian leu*
 * 67) Russian ruble*
 * 68) Scandinavia (see 2.2.2 Scandinavia)*
 * 69) Scotland (see 1.1 British pounds)
 * 70) Russian ruble (Siberia; see also 3.46 Russian ruble)
 * 71) Spain (see 2.1 Euro)
 * 72) Sweden (see 2.2.2.5 Swedish krona)*
 * 73) Tanzanian shilling
 * 74) Chinese yuan (Tibet; see also 2.4 Chinese Yuan)
 * 75) West African CFA franc (Togo; see also 3.11 Burkina Faso)
 * 76) Turkish lira
 * 77) Ugandan shilling
 * 78) Ukrainian hryvnia*
 * 79) United States of America (see 1.2 United States dollars)
 * 80) Wales (see 1.1 British pounds)
 * 81) Congolese franc (Zaire)

Template:Money
Used to format and display wizarding money, along with optional automatic conversion of up to three currencies of your choice.
 * e.g. :

Uses the Knut rate background template (which uses Exchange rates and Inflation rates in turn) to convert the amount of wizarding money (in Knuts, the lowest common denomination) to modern day currency values (essentially the amount it was worth in 2001, plus inflation).

Exchange rates
contains the exchange rates as of 22 September 2000, when the real world US dollar to British pound ask rate exactly matched that given in her charity books (and is approximately when J.K. Rowling would have been writing).

Inflation rates
contains the inflation values for all the suitable currencies for 2001 and since, according to the only source that contains (nearly - a few currencies have blanks, and the Eurozone as a separate entity is missing) all the data we need.

THIS IS THE ONLY TEMPLATE THAT NEEDS TO BE UPDATED; all the rest either use this template indirectly or have fixed rates that should not be altered. The inflation rates are currently up to, but the World Bank website used to update it is always at least one year behind. If it is more than two years out of date, then please check the site and update it accordingly.

Knut rate
uses the Exchange rates and Inflation rates templates to give an approximate value of how much Knuts (the smallest denomination and hence the best way to convert a mixed sum of denominations) are worth in any given modern currency.