Fake Money

[Mint]

After Hermoine decided to use fake galleons to inform Dumbledore Army members of their meetings...makes u think - how come noone is counterfeiting wizard money?

[highsorcerer]

It does seem that the wizarding world has a problem with conterfeit money. I would have to guess that there are several determinents to doing it, beginning with the fact that Gringotts is controlled by Goblins. As has been stated, they have their own ways to protect themselves from wizards. So perhaps there is some inherent property (Goblin made) in wizard coins to prevent outright copying. I suppose that Hermoine might have simply modified existing Galleons to alter their serial numbers (but she'd have been out of pocket 28 or 29 Galleons; the original 28 plus Finnegan, who joined after Christmas). Still, there are known ways to defraud people (leprechan gold; victims include Fred Weasley, George Weasley, and Lee Jordon's father; Lugo Bagman, culprit). Interestingly, the Goblins were not fooled at all.

[Sara8830]

Speaking of money... (this is a little off subject, but your mention of fake money brought it back to mind) I have racked my brain and it is still bothering me... I can't seem to remember any mention of HOW Harry's parents ended up with so much wizard money in the bank. It seems that they were married soon out of Hogwarts and had Harry not to long after... and were killed a little over a year later... so they didn't have a long time in the wizarding world to make that much money. My question is, has this been mentioned in any of the books or is it still yet to be revealed?

[choki]

I heard a rumour though, it will be reveal in later books...perhaps the money were inherited?

conterfeit galleons, interesting...it would be nearly impossible to detect if you're not a gringotts globin

[Mint]

Oh yes I know that Bank would detect them. Our bank detects them too! But Im thinking of regular use, u know....when u buy stuff Its just its never mentioned so....

highsorcerer - u think it used to be real galleons? But usually Counterfeit means that u made it not bank made it...

Harry's money....James was rich no doubt. Im 100% sure that his money was inherited and have been passed down for generations. I always thought of Potters as rich pure blood wizards.....but who knows? May be he won them through some tornaments

[pinky p]

yeah! or... triwizard cup? i don't remember when they said the last one was... but perhaps james won it? that would be really cool!

[highsorcerer]

I don't have my books handy, so I can't tell if Hermoine stated if the Galleons were outright counterfit or not. I do think it would be easier to to have some kind of image inducer to alter the serial numbers that create a realistic looking coin.

I doubt that James won a triwizard tournament; I seem to recall they hadn't had one in 100 years at least, and James would have been too young. There is no doubt James could have made a great deal of money over a lifetime (he was very talented and powerful) in some regular occupation. Unless the money was inherited, there are only a few ways he could have obtained a large amount of money quickly. Legitimate means would have been either entering a very high paying job early in his life such as all-star level professional Quidditch player (assuming signing bonuses and salary levels rank at some degree close to those paid in the United States at the major league levels), very successful business owner, inventor / patent holder for something extremely valuable, or skilled / successful bounty hunter (private Auror). Of course, he might also have gotten the money illegally (uncaught Gringott Bank thief), though I doubt that is the case.

[gecko]

Yeah he will either have gotten it from his parents or from a career in Quidditch. Didn't JKR said some time in an interview that the source of Harry's and therefore James' wealth would be revealed in one the books?
I seem to remember having read that... could be wrong though!

[Meg Boyd]

Hermione probably did just alter normal galleons, as for how she got them there is always "What did Hermione do with the SPEW dues, eh?" or perhaps she went to the room of requirement and wished for 30 some galleons???? Perhaps she did make the galleons, but I am sure they were just fronts...meaning they appear to be real galleons, but shop keepers and goblins alike probably have some wacky, crazy, magical spell to detect counterfeit money, just as muggle shop and bank keepers have ways to detect counterfeit money (ie watermarks, hollagrams, blue and red thread...etc) that the normal person would not know.