# Bilbo's wealth



## Ithrynluin (Nov 16, 2005)

In FoTR, Chapter 1: A Long-expected Party, there is constant reference to Bilbo's alleged wealth, treasures he supposedly brought back from his journey to the Lonely Mountain. However, even though Bilbo gives out tons of gifts to everyone, there is not even a penny to be found among these items. Still, the majority of the hobbit population persists in their belief that there must be dozens of tunnels full of gems and gold in Bag End hill.

How much truth do you think there was to these rumours?


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## e.Blackstar (Nov 16, 2005)

I haven't got the book with me at the moment, but wasn't Bilbo's 'fourteenth share' of Smaug's treasure about enough to fill a barrow? If I recall, he took home a 'barrow of treasure' from the mountain when Gandalf led him back to the Shire. If that's true...then he would be quite rich by hobbit standards, but not enough to fill the hol.=e.


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## Gothmog (Nov 16, 2005)

In RotK when the Hobbits return to Rivendell on their way back home, Bilbo gives Sam some money saying:


> To Sam he gave a little bag of gold. 'Almost the last drop of the Smaug vintage,' he said. 'May come in useful, if you think of getting married, Sam.' Sam blushed.


So I doubt that there was ever enough to fill tunnels. However, a good story about such things is like a snowball rolled down mount Everest. It gets bigger every time it turns around


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## Ithrynluin (Nov 16, 2005)

I had completely forgotten about Bilbo's gift to Sam, thanks for the reminder Gothmog!

I think we can all agree that the legend about Bilbo's immense wealth was magnified to the n-th degree. However, I wonder how it was started in the first place. 

Did some hobbits see Bilbo hauling a few bags of what was allegedly gold when he was returning from the quest of Erebor, and then the rumours started spreading (and gaining on sensationality)?


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## Wolfshead (Nov 16, 2005)

Ithrynluin said:


> Did some hobbits see Bilbo hauling a few bags of what was allegedly gold when he was returning from the quest of Erebor, and then the rumours started spreading (and gaining on sensationality)?


Perhaps a more lavish than normal lifestyle, or the fact he never did any proper work?


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## Gothmog (Nov 16, 2005)

I think that it may have been due more to the Troll's Gold rather than what he brought home from the Lonely Mountain.



> _FotR:Chapter 12. Flight to the Ford_
> 'There!' said Merry. 'That must be the stone that marked the place where the trolls' gold was hidden. How much is left of Bilbo's share, I wonder, Frodo?'
> Frodo looked at the stone, and wished that Bilbo had brought home no treasure more perilous, nor less easy to part with. *'None at all,' he said. 'Bilbo gave it all away. He told me he did not feel it was really his, as it came from robbers*.'


Giving away the gold he gained from the Trolls probably made the Hobbits think that he had far more treasure than he in fact had.


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## Alcuin (Nov 16, 2005)

Well, Bilbo was born wealthy, by hobbit standards. Belladonna Took was his mother, and as Tolkien quaintly puts it, 


> Bungo [Baggins], that was Bilbo’s father, built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her (and partly with her money) that was to be found either under The Hill or over The Hill or across The Water


 Belladonna’s father was Gerontius, “The Old Took,” and “the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtedly richer.” It would appear that, before the intervention of Saruman in Shire affairs through the Sackville-Bagginses in Southfarthing, the Tooks, who were the hereditary Thains, and the Brandybucks, who were “master(s) of what was virtually a small independent country,” were the wealthiest families in the Shire.

Now, consider that 100 pounds of gold (45.4 kg) would be worth over US $700,000 at today’s closing price (“…they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value…”), or about € 600,000; £ 410,000; Kr 4,700,000 (that one is just for you, Élhendi – and notice I got the little *´* over the plain E for you, too), A$ 960,000, C$ 840,000, NZ$ 1,000,000 … anybody want another rough quote? If each gold coin was the traditional one troy ounce (troy ounces are about 10% larger than normal ounces, weighing about 31.1g), 100 pounds of gold would be about 1460 gold coins. 

Now, Bilbo went home with “two small chests, one filled with silver, and the other with gold, such as one strong pony could carry.” The exchange rate between silver and gold has been moving in favor of gold for millennia; in ancient times it was 6 or 8 units of silver per unit of gold; by the Renaissance, it was about 12:1; when Williams Jennings Bryan made his famous “Cross of Gold” speech in 1896, it was 16:1. Today, it is about 60:1. But let us assume that Tolkien used a medieval rate of, say, 10:1. 

A typical stout pony can probably carry about 8 stone (around 110 pounds or 50 kg) without straining. So, let’s figure 55 pounds of gold and 55 pounds of silver as a reasonable estimate of what Bilbo took back to Hobbiton. That would be (at a 10:1 exchange rate for silver to gold) about US$ 425,000, or £250,000. It doesn’t sound like a fortune. But consider this: Caernarvon Castle was completed in the early 1300s for about £22,000. So Bilbo had roughly the equivalent of 10 or 12 Caernarvon Castles. (Steven Muhlberger in the On-Line Reference Books for Medieval Studies says that, “Edward III, one of the richer monarchs of the time, had a normal yearly revenue of no more than £30,000 a year.” Edward III built Caernarvon Castle.)

Quite a fortune, even if he could have built only one Caernarvon Castle “either under The Hill or over The Hill or across The Water.” _

Silly monetary comparisons aside_, it is probably safe to say that Bilbo was the single wealthiest individual in the Shire by a considerable degree.

Oh, Bilbo traded his fourteenth share for the Arkenstone, if you recall, and after the Battle of Five Armies, that was given over to Bard.


> Yet a fourteenth share of all the silver and gold, wrought and unwrought, was given up to Bard; for Dain said: “We will honour the agreement of the dead, and he has now the Arkenstone in his keeping.”
> 
> Even a fourteenth share was wealth exceedingly great, greater than that of many mortal kings.


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## e.Blackstar (Nov 16, 2005)

> Oh, Bilbo traded his fourteenth share for the Arkenstone, if you recall, and after the Battle of Five Armies, that was given over to Bard.



But he then got at least _some_ gold...just maybe not as much as he might've.


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## Arvedui (Nov 17, 2005)

If you are looking for an explanation for Bilbo's alleged wealth, then I believe that the explanation can be that he bought back all of his belongings that had already been sold when he returned from the Quest of Erebor..
But don't forget that Bilbo's real wealth was something neither himself nor any hobbit would realize: The Mithril coat.


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## Barliman Butterbur (Nov 17, 2005)

Ithrynluin said:


> In FoTR, Chapter 1: A Long-expected Party, there is constant reference to Bilbo's alleged wealth, treasures he supposedly brought back from his journey to the Lonely Mountain. However, even though Bilbo gives out tons of gifts to everyone, there is not even a penny to be found among these items. Still, the majority of the hobbit population persists in their belief that there must be dozens of tunnels full of gems and gold in Bag End hill.
> 
> How much truth do you think there was to these rumours?



I believe I recall reading about Bilbo giving Sam a small bag of gold, referring to it as "almost the last drop of the Smaug vintage." For me, that says it all.

Barley



Élhendi said:


> ...don't forget that Bilbo's real wealth was something neither himself nor any hobbit would realize: The Mithril coat.



Excellent point! What happened to it after Bilbo and Frodo sailed into the West? Did it stay behind in the Shire in Sam's keeping? Did Frodo take it with him?

Barley


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## morgoth_1907 (Nov 17, 2005)

e.Blackstar said:


> But he then got at least _some_ gold...just maybe not as much as he might've.


Yes he have. Remember armor made from mithril. He gave it to Frodo only for his "journey". He could take it back.


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## Wolfshead (Nov 17, 2005)

Alcuin said:


> But consider this: Caernarvon Castle was completed in the early 1300s for about £22,000. So Bilbo had roughly the equivalent of 10 or 12 Caernarvon Castles. (Steven Muhlberger in the On-Line Reference Books for Medieval Studies says that, “Edward III, one of the richer monarchs of the time, had a normal yearly revenue of no more than £30,000 a year.” Edward III built Caernarvon Castle.)


Ah well, y'see, I happen to know it was Edward _I_ that built Caernarvon Castle, for £22,000 - more than a years treasury income. You would have got away with it had Edward I's son, Edward II, not been known later as Edward Caernarvon, which suggests a connection with the castle. It was later believed Edward II was born there, but there's no contempory evidence to suggest it.

Indeed, your source even says it was Edward I.



> Take, for instance, the big, well-designed castles that Edward I built to control Wales. Just one of these, Caernarfon Castle, cost £20-25,000 between 1284 and 1330, when it was essentially finished. This is as if Canada had bought a small fleet of submarines, each of which cost 80 billion dollars. Caernarfon Castle was exceptional, but not unique.


I'm sorry, but I'm a history student and probably know too much


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## Erestor Arcamen (Nov 17, 2005)

wouldn't the real wealth be, even though he didn't get it from the dwarves, the One Ring? I mean this ring was the bane of Isildur, the one thing that, if Sauron regained it, Middle Earth as he knew it, would be dessimated. The Ring was worth more than anything under the Lonely Mountain. If that Ring got into the wrong hands, then Middle Earth as the Hobbits and Dwarves and Gandalf knew it would be no more.


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## Alcuin (Nov 17, 2005)

Wolfshead said:


> Ah well, y'see, I happen to know it was Edward _I_ that built Caernarvon Castle, for £22,000 - more than a years treasury income. ... Indeed, your source even says it was Edward I.


How sloppy of me! You are correct.


Wolfshead said:


> I'm sorry, but I'm a history student and probably know too much


Don't be.


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## Wolfshead (Nov 17, 2005)

Alcuin said:


> How sloppy of me! You are correct.
> 
> Don't be.


Haha, I'm not really sorry  I'm a pedant really...


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## Alcuin (Nov 17, 2005)

Wolfshead said:


> I’m a pedant really...


Good! So am I.

Of course, the whole business of the gold from Smaug’s hoard overlooks what might have been salvaged from the trolls, which Aragorn and the hobbits found buried north of the road after Weathertop, doesn’t it?


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## Gothmog (Nov 17, 2005)

Alcuin said:


> Of course, the whole business of the gold from Smaug’s hoard overlooks what might have been salvaged from the trolls, which Aragorn and the hobbits found buried north of the road after Weathertop, doesn’t it?


This was the subject of my post no 6 above. Perhaps you missed it as I think you were posting at the same time.


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## Helcaraxë (Nov 20, 2005)

Even after his Dragon-procured wealth was spent, though, Bilbo still had assets; for instance, Bag End, the probably endless supply of good, expensive wines, his property and lots, the multitude of strange and wondrous things floating about his hobbit hole, and perhaps the profits from his translations could have made him rich in and of themselves.


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