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[LordMortis]

No idea of this is true or now but it caught my attention.

[Isgrimnur]

How Much is a Dragon Worth, Revisited Apr 23, 2012

I estimated the ancient wyrm to be worth $8.6 billion.

The Internet disagreed.

Citing errors in everything from the value of the “Arkenstone of Thrain” to the price of mithril armor, Fictional 15 fans critiqued nearly every aspect of my calculation, usually concluding that I had vastly underestimated the old flamethrower’s net worth.
...
Still, I am man enough to admit to making a few imaginary errors. So I carefully recalculated Smaug’s net worth taking into account the comments on last year’s post. And the Internet was right. He is worth a lot more than $8.6 billion. $53.4 billion more in fact.
...
Lose 30% of that volume to air and dragon droppings and we are left with 1477 cubic feet of silver and gold. Assuming a 50/50 gold/silver treasure composition and adjusting for the current price of gold ($1642/oz.) and silver ($31.66/oz) we arrive at a value of $14.7 billion for the gold and silver in Smaug’s bed.
...
The gold and silver in the surrounding mounds is worth $14.7 billion/2 *4 or $29.4 billion.

Gold is 2,917.10 at this time, silver at 31.81

[Blackhawk]

Now you've done it. You've woken the sleeping dragon.

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Gold, schmold.

How much is the Shire worth? What's the value of 20,000 square miles of prime, productive farmland? Well, one square mile is 640 acres. Farmland in the US is going for ~$5500-6000 per acre. Assuming that a portion of the Shire is rivers, ponds, etc, I'll average the value at $4500/acre. So, $2.88 million per square mile. That's approximately $57.6 billion dollars, just for the Shire.

But Smaug doesn't have the Shire in his hidey-hole. So why bring it up?

Quoth LOTR (the book):

'What?' cried Gimli, startled out of his silence. 'A corslet of Moria-silver? That was a kingly gift!' Yes,' said Gandalf. 'I never told him, but its worth was greater than the value of the whole Shire and everything in it.'

That is referring only to Bilbo's mail shirt. One child-sized (it was made for an Elven youth) mithril shirt is worth more than 57.6 billion dollars worth of land, plus existing infrastructure, crops, and livestock. I'd be shocked if Biblo's shirt wasn't worth $75-$100 billion.

But his shirt was on Biblo, not in Smaug's horde. So why bring it up?

Quoth Mithrandir, Gandalf the Grey:

The wealth of Moria was not in gold and jewels... all things that they desired they could obtain in traffic. For here alone in the world was found Moria-silver, or true-silver as some have called it: Mithril is the name.

Smaug was sleeping on mineral rights that alone were worth trillions, and there would have been a substantial amount of mithril ore, bars, and products within that horde.
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Now, back to the doomscrolling.

[Holman]

These values mean nothing without factoring in Balrog Insurance.

[Jaymann]

These values mean nothing without factoring in Balrog Insurance.

LOL!

[Blackhawk]

Brain fart - I wrote that before caffeine. Smaug was in Erebor, not Moria. Erebor didn't have mithril deposits. Still, it would absolutely have had multiple mithril products, and again - just one was worth more than is being attributed to Smaug.

[stessier]

Hank explaining why this attack on science is different.