How rich was bilbo baggins, translated to real life networth? a million dollars? 10 millions dollars...

how rich was bilbo baggins, translated to real life networth? a million dollars? 10 millions dollars? even more than that? was he a billionaire like bill gates?

are there really no LOTR economics experts who could answer this question on here?

I don't know but this thread has a potential to be really comfy. Please don't let it die Sup Forums

I don't think Tolkien ever explicity stated his net worth, as he was 100% goy, so exact measurings of wealth weren't of importance to based JRR

Tolkien really didn't deal with anything economical in his works. There isn't any real way of knowing other than he was well off by Hobbit standards.

Not considering economics is one of Grr Martins biggest criticisms of LOTR

The Mithril shirt alone was probably worth billions, Gandalf said it was worth more than The Shire.

Probably about ten millions? But it's not really comparable because no one in the Shire had wealth rivaling that at all

so he was bill gates kind of rich?

He was landed gentry. You don't translate that kind of shit into modern millions.

We have no way of transiting his wealth to the modern day. He was already well off before the adventure though. He was from a good stock and didn't work: he was a learned gentleman who threw parties and studied.

After the adventure he came home with a chest full of swag. He was fucking loaded at this point. The Long-Expected Party was one of the biggest private events in Shire history and Biblo fronted the bill easily.

Going to watch lotr for the 42432423nth time.
Things i should know?

Really hard to tell, because the hobbit community is very small and there are no homeless or really poor hobbits I assume. He was described as one of the richest hobbits though, his house is one of the largest and his share of the treasure has to be taken in account. I don't think you can put that in real life numbers because the inequality is just too high. Let's just say he was probably the richest hobbit around.

I had to throw my copy of The Hobbit away because the cover fell of and the spine broke but I believe all that Bilbo took from the Lonely Mountain horde were two chests of gold/rubies. That said, it's still a fuckload of money and he was easiest the richest person in Hobbiton. Two chests of dwarf gold/rubies had to be around 5/10 million dollars, easy.

Why are there no black hobbits?

there are, but in the far east

>tfw my copy of the Hobbit is the 50th Anniversary Edition with a sweet handwritten message from my Mum to my Dad on the inside cover

Maximum comfy and feels

This means nothing since no one out side of a king would even have that much money.

The mithril vest is just a worthless trinket

The Extended Editions are unnecessary and ruin the pacing - so watch the theatrical release trilogy

Nice one, lad. I bought my copy when I was 13, which was 15 years ago. I read it so much it eventually just wore down from all the wear and tear. I have to order a new copy sometime.

would a billion dollar bill also be worthless?

...

The fuck are you on about? It's literally the greatest armor ever made.

Yes, where the fuck would you cash it

Paper money is worthless.

that's something worth of thinking. i wonder how is economic science looking towards that theory.

It has no monetary value. It might be goat armour but you couldn't sell it to anyone unless you greatly devalued it

Well probably not but maybe when you have someone of power looking to purchase it. You could probably ask for nearly anything.

Maximum reddit

He owned the ring of power, which was beyond value
that alone would make him the richest person in middle earth

It's hard to put a modern monetary value on Bilbo's wealth. He was a fairly well to do hobbit, landed gentry and all, but exactly what sort of income his lands provided is nebulous. The chest of troll-hoard treasure he brought home with him added considerably to his wealth, though not nearly so much as Hobbiton gossip might speculate. He had two truly valuable possessions (the Ring and the mithril shirt), but he had no idea of their true worth. Let's just say he never had to worry about keeping his pantry full.

About 3.5 billion

Yeah because economics in GoT is so realistic and well analyzed

Yeah you're right it would've been so much better if she baneposted to him

bullshit. you don't actually own something that could be taken from you with a threat of a single bitch slap

it's not like it was his company or something, it could be stolen from him in a matter of seconds by a more powerful individual

I think the implication is that Gandalf never told Bilbo the worth of the Mithril shirt because he probably would have sold it to the dwarves or some rich king, bought out the shire and evicted everyone he didn't want there like some hobbit version of Donald Trump.

He would probably have ended up living totally alone and turned liked Gollum a lot quicker

It would have been extremely joyful

kek, I'd love to see that

BUILD WALL

You could "rent" it out to a king for infinite money. Most of them would be creaming themselves over the status-symbol of being the only guy with a mithril shirt and would easily be able to give you and your children a fiefdom and tax-exemption for it. At that point you're basically got something worth more than billions.

>bullshit. you don't actually own something that could be taken from you
thats it this board is beyond retarded .. bye Sup Forums i hope you enjoy the shit show

why would anyone in power even try to buy mithril shirt or the ring from bilbo when he could easily just kill him and take those things instead? those things are worthless in bilbo's possession.

>Had some Amazon money to blow
>searched lotr
>over 9000 movies
Wtf? What's the order of this shit and what should I buy?

he's right. you don't actually own something you can't ever defend if someone tries to take it away from you. economics 101, you should educate yourself.

>he could easily just kill him
um he has a mithril shirt good luck genius

by that logic, sauron is the richest person in middle earth because he has the largest army even though he's a ghost that cant buy anything

do you not understand currency?

and how would you sell something without having to offer it first, genius?

>dildo daggins

"howdy Gandalf would you and Elrond go and fuck up that guys kingdom .. he stole my shit"

why do you think he couldnt defend himself?

"Hey Gandalf and Elrond could you two go and solo the entirety of Gondor like this is fucking Dragonball Z?"

Who is this wealthy "A king" guy you are talking about?

Aragorn obviously

what makes you fags think the shire is even that valuable anyway

>Bilbo being in the Shire when Aragorn is King

>allotted 2 big chests of treasure from the dwarves
>the mithril coat
>a number of dwarf and orc trophies
a good bit especially for a hobbit

>oh hey this hobbit who went on a quest with Gandalf the Grey, the dude fucking EVERY ruler gets advice from, has something I want
>Imma gonna kill him for the gift he got from the ruler of Erebor

If Bilbo was going to sell the shirt he'd not only have the Gandalf-card to pull, he'd have all his dwarf-friends that'd be unhappy about him getting murdered. Which is especially important when it would be dwarves who'd appraise the shirt and say whether it was legit in the first place. Then he's got all the elves that like him.

Any king who decided to murder Bilbo for the mithril shirt would not get to enjoy owning it when everyone called him out on the murder.

>wow bilbo this vest is easily worth more than whole shire itself
>shire is worth around $8277 current real life currency

wow it sure is some treasure he has there, is that right you fucking autists?

what about Sting? did he lose it?

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I spoke of a king I meant any number of lesser "kings", as well as the actual ones like Theoden. You always have a ton of leaders who style themselves kings even though their territory would really be ruled by Gondor or something like that. Then you've got dwarf kings. Even if they're not styling themselves as kings at the moment the owning of a mithril shirt would be just the thing to cement their right to kingship. And if they can get others to proclaim them king then they'll have enough pull to give Bilbo a cozy little place to rule himself, with nice tax-rates for him and his children for the great service he did for the kingdom.

i always had a feeling that Frodo, Merry and Pippin were heirs to a shire nobility, and Bag End in Baggins case was not just an estate, but a larger portion of land which Bagginses leased or produced on. Just like Tara is not only O'Haras house in gone with the wind, but all the adjacent agricultural estate

Sam has sting.

This

Compared to what? LOTR and 90% of fantasy? Then the answer is simply: yes.

>LOTR making-ofs still on DVD
>Hobbit shlock
no thanks.

It's funny that Martin criticized Tolkien for things like economics and government policies (when that is expressly not what LotR is about) then he doesn't even provide much detail in ASoIaF, which IS supposed to deal with those topics.

When you account for inflation and relativity it's worth more, for instance the richest British people that ever lived by relative wealth were all lords in the reign of William the conquerer.

It doesn't have to be wholly realistic or heavily analyzed. The fact that it exists puts it ahead of LOTR and most LOTR-derived fantasy where prophesied kings never seem to actually need to do things like collect tax from his people. In GoT economics even show up in the hiring of assassins.

>30 discs
what the fuck

ASOIAF is basically just

>I prefer mature and dark fantasy for serious and brooding adults such as myself

>give Bilbo a cozy little place to rule himself, with nice tax-rates for him and his children for the great service he did for the kingdom.

or how about just kill him and take a mithril vest instead, no drama and obligations involved?

Because characters occasionally remark that "this wedding will cost x gold dragons" or "our coffers are nearly out of coin!". He doesn't even have the presence of mind to offer conversions between silver stags and gold dragons. It's so basic that he might as well not have included it.

From The Hobbit:
>This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich
>[...]
>As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit—of Bilbo Baggins, that is—was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them

So not only was he rich, but came from a respectable family that was the landed elite. They were so respectable in fact people thought they weren't even fully Hobbits. Bilbo inherited Bag End which is the biggest and nicest house in the Shire.

>a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on
>[...]
>n one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden

He lived in a mansion which had rooms dedicated just for clothes. He had many bedrooms, bathrooms and an amazing view.

>Frodo, Merry and Pippin were heirs to a Shire nobility
I love that detail in the movies. If you look at Frodo, Merry and Pippin's clothes they have very nice vests, shiny buttons, while Sam has "working class" clothes.

this

He was an extremely wealthy Hobbit who didn't have to work, had a massive home with servants etc.

He's the 1%

He didn't have servants.

Because he is good friends with the dwarves of the lonely mountain, would you kill him if it meant a war with the dwarves?

yes i woudl, i would fuck him up and take the vest

>killing the guy who's friends with Gandalf The Grey and Elrond and a hero to the dwarves of Erebor, not to mention his standing in the Shire
>no drama
>trying to show how you should be king by donning a marvellous mithril shirt that everyone knows you murdered a little hobbit for


We're not talking about a burglar breaking in and stealing shit from a person they don't know anything about. A ruler wouldn't be as stupid as you.

I think it was all a front and he was super poor

>had to sell out for Dennys

what a fraud

>R

R? What movie is rated R?

What I'M curious about is the economic implications of this much gold shit.

I mean holy fuck, I don't know shit about economics and I can tell this would absolutely fuck the entirety of Middle-Earth up.

>interesting discussion about the wealth of the Baggins' family
>"I'd kill him and take mythril"
>"I'd fuck him up! "

Reminder that you have to be 18+ to post on this website.

>that cant buy anything
Didn't he pay for those mercenaries from the east?

Why would you need currency conversions? The story doesn't need currency conversions at any point, it's just a pointless factoid for autists to bring out. What's important for the story is how the kingdom's debts actually have an impact on the fate of the kingdom and thus of the characters, or how some of the players can't do anything because they don't have the money to field an army. In LOTR the thought of an army requiring funds isn't even considered.

Who is Goku and Vegeta of Tolkienverse?

Hobbits were always weak to food

Both Sam and his father were his gardeners. Gardeners count as servant.

>landed elite
It is not said anywhere that they are the landed elite. They just happen to have money for some reason. Remember it's a fucking children's book

>They were so respectable in fact people thought they weren't even fully Hobbits
It doesn't say that at all. It makes no connection between the fairy rumors and respectability. It also does not call the Tooks respectable, only the Baggins

There really aren't any comparisons because Tolkien wrote his characters with depth

aragorn and legolas

they might be black

Dragons are clearly evolution taking care of inflation by way of hoarding.

think more like a rothchild but ignorant or oblivious with regards to his wealth

I didnt know there were other people capable of sapient thought on Sup Forums
Fascinating

How could you add economics to LotR?

>oh gandalf we'd love to go on a quest to save our world but how much would we get paid? Do we get travel expenses?
>well we could defend Gondors capital from an enemy invasion but has there been a cost/benefit analysis provided to determine if its worth it?

either start orcposting or keep up with the comfy hobbit discussion

...

Doesn't he not take his share of the treasure? I remember that he says they can keep it and he digs up the chest from the cave where they found all the elven weapons

You're acting like economics and government policies are so detailed, but that's an example of how they actually aren't. It's very surface level stuff, yet it's supposedly a major part of the story. LotR is not about those things at all and it would have been awkward to include it.

Rohan having trouble coming to Gondor's aid because they don't have the economy to field such a huge army at such a short notice. Sauron's Easterling armies defecting because the promises of plunder didn't pan out quick enough, there isn't enough food to forage and because they refuse to eat the muck that the orc armies have brought with them for the siege.

Economy is not all about money changing hands, you know.

>arbitrary assigned values from a non-canon, non-Martin work - a tabletop RPG no less
What is this supposed to prove? Want me to cite LotR video games in future arguments? We're talking about canon works, the books themselves.

>What is this supposed to prove?
nothing, I'm just thinking aloud.

here's the closest thing I've found from a book:
>At the time of The Hedge Knight (209 AC), a plain yet complete set of good steel armor with greaves, gorget, and greathelm could cost eight hundred stags,[11] which equals almost four golden dragons.

You'd deposit it in a bank, and withdraw smaller amounts of money as needed. If you needed to buy something worth a billion dollars you'd write a check and the imaginary money would move from bank to bank.