I wonder what the physical size of a 9 lb bar of gold would be

[Alpo]

I had a dream. In the dream I was transporting a bar of gold. And someone asked me if I knew what it was worth. I told them $5,300,000.

 

After I woke up I started wondering how big that was. So first I found out what gold was going for - 1900 and change - then I figured out how much $5, 300,000 would be in in Troy it that price, converted Troy to grains because I'm used to thinking in grains, and divided that huge number by 7000. Came up with basically 9.3 lb.

 

It would be much smaller than a 10 lb bag of flour because gold is much heavier than flour. It would even be smaller than a 9 lb bar of lead because gold is heavier than lead.

 

I just wonder how big that would actually be?

[PowderRiverCowboy]

I can tell you how big 3.2 Billion dollars looks inside a Blackhawk Helicopter 

 

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

I checked my safe and found a bar that weighs 185 lbs/84 kilos worth close to $5.3 million.

 

Oh man...I just let out my biggest secret! 

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

@Alpo,

You could use this as a comparison to get your answer.

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

One cubic inch of gold weighs 10.13 ounces.12 ounces to a pound, so 1.1846 cubic inches per pound.  1.1846 x 9.3 = 11.01678 cubic  inches for a 9.3 pound bar.  So a cube 2.2251" per side.  (EDITED  FOR THE 0.3 POUNDS)

[Sedalia Dave]

9 hours ago, Alpo said:

I had a dream. In the dream I was transporting a bar of gold. And someone asked me if I knew what it was worth. I told them $5,300,000.

 

After I woke up I started wondering how big that was. So first I found out what gold was going for - 1900 and change - then I figured out how much $5, 300,000 would be in in Troy it that price, converted Troy to grains because I'm used to thinking in grains, and divided that huge number by 7000. Came up with basically 9.3 lb.

 

It would be much smaller than a 10 lb bag of flour because gold is much heavier than flour. It would even be smaller than a 9 lb bar of lead because gold is heavier than lead.

 

I just wonder how big that would actually be?

 

Redo your math...

 

Volume of 1 Troy Oz., we have 31.1/19.3 = 1.611 cubic centimeters.

 

$5,300,000 / $1900 per troy oz = 2789.474 Troy Ounces * 1.611 =  7243.976 cc = 1.914 gallons

 

Note that the above values are rounded to the third decimal place. My calculations were carried out to the 10th decimal place to avoid rounding errors.

 

Corrected a major math error.

[bgavin]

Interesting.

[Alpo]

Yeah Dave, it did seem that 9 lb would be a little small for 5 million dollars. I need to check my math.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

2 hours ago, Father Kit Cool Gun Garth said:

I checked my safe and found a bar that weighs 185 lbs/84 kilos worth close to $5.3 million.

 

Oh man...I just let out my biggest secret! 

But that’s not figuring in Troy pounds and ounces.

[Black Angus McPherson]

Ounces to troy ounces to grams to grains to pounds to kilograms to cubic inches to GALLONS???

 

Man, my head hurts.  You figure it out.  Just give me the cash.

 

Angus (completely lost and trying to get my GPS to work)

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

2 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

One cubic inch of gold weighs 10.13 ounces.12 ounces to a pound, so 1.1846 cubic inches per pound.  1.1846 x 9.3 = 11.01678 cubic  inches for a 9.3 pound bar.  So a cube 2.2251" per side.  (EDITED  FOR THE 0.3 POUNDS)

A mere paperweight.

[Cypress Sun]

 

I'd be thinking, as I look at the other nine 10lb bars..."That SOB shorted me a pound."

[bgavin]

The Troy ounce thing reminds me of the 9 oz bottles of Trail Boss they [edit] sold, but at prices typical of a full pound.

[Blackwater 53393]

The first thing that needs to be determined is what measure of pounds is being used. Then which measure of ounces!  
 

There are twelve Troy ounces to the Troy pound and fourteen and a half Troy ounces to the standard (British Imperial) pound. A Troy pound is 0.823 standard pounds.

 

SO!!  Which apples or oranges are we comparing? 

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

6 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

 

SO!!  Which apples or oranges are we comparing? 

Grapefruit!

[Alpo]

48 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

SO!!  Which apples or oranges are we comparing? 

Is why, in my explanation of how I came up with 9 lb, I converted to grains. Because a grain is a grain is a grain. Don't matter if you're talking Troy or British or avidapois or pharmaceutical or what - a grain is a grain is a grain.

[Subdeacon Joe]

51 minutes ago, Blackwater 53393 said:

The first thing that needs to be determined is what measure of pounds is being used. Then which measure of ounces!  
 

There are twelve Troy ounces to the Troy pound and fourteen and a half Troy ounces to the standard (British Imperial) pound. A Troy pound is 0.823 standard pounds.

 

SO!!  Which apples or oranges are we comparing? 

 

In the OP he stated:

 

"first I found out what gold was going for - 1900 and change - then I figured out how much $5, 300,000 would be in in Troy it that price, converted Troy to grains because I'm used to thinking in grains, and divided that huge number by 7000. "

 

If he knows to use Troy ounces he knows to use Troy pounds.

 

Good bar bet:  A pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of gold.

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

1 minute ago, Alpo said:

Is why, in my explanation of how I came up with 9 lb, I converted to grains. Because a grain is a grain is a grain. Don't matter if you're talking Troy or British or avidapois or pharmaceutical or what - a grain is a grain is a grain.

 

But you did state 9 POUNDS.  I made the jump that since you mentioned Troy ounces you meant Troy pounds.

[Alpo]

5 hours ago, Alpo said:

converted Troy to grains because I'm used to thinking in grains, and divided that huge number by 7000.

Notice I also said I converted it to grains and then divided by 7000. There are 7000 grains in an avidapois pound.

[Subdeacon Joe]

So you went from Troy ounces to grains, then converted that to pounds Avoirdupois.  

 

By Vulcan's left nut WHY?

[Alpo]

Just now, Subdeacon Joe said:

Avoirdupois

Thank you. Not only do I not know how to spell it but otto doesn't know how to spell it, Google doesn't know how to spell it, Duck Duck Go doesn't know how to spell it.

 

Why? Because I think in pounds. There are 16 oz in a pound, and 14 lb in a stone, and 2000 pounds in a ton. I don't think in grams, I don't think in Troy. I think in nice normal pounds. If someone says they're going to give me a 5 lb bag of sugar, I know how much that's going to weigh. If they tell me they're going to give me a 2 kilo bag of sugar, I have to convert it, and then I know I'm getting ripped off because that's only 4.4 pounds

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

OK, 9.3 pounds Avoirdupois is 11 29⁄96 pounds Troy. That's 136.625 Troy ounces.

 

A cube 2.374 inches on a side.

 

ADDED:   I don't know how to spell it either, but I was able to get close enough for Google.

[Subdeacon Joe]

4 minutes ago, Alpo said:

Because I think in pounds. There are 16 oz in a pound, and 14 lb in a stone, and 2000 pounds in a ton.

 

But you started off in TROY!  

 

A ton is 20 hundredweight (a hundredweight is 4 quarterweight or 8 stone), which is 2,240 pounds to the ton.  2,000 pounds is a short ton.

[Alpo]

I started in Troy because that's how they price precious metals. They say that it cost umpty ump per troy ounce. So if I have this much money worth of the precious metal, I have X amount of troy ounces or Y amount of Troy pounds of the metal.

 

But I don't know how much that is because I don't think in Troy. I know that Troy pounds are not the same as pounds pounds. I don't know if they're heavier or lighter but I know they're not the same. Just like troy ounces. I don't know if they're heavier or if they're lighter but I know they're not the same as a regular ounce.

 

If you told me that thing was 47 cm long I would have to convert it (that would be right around 19 inches). If you tell me it's 19 inches long I can visualize how long that is, but I have no clue how long 47 cm is. I don't think in centimeters.

 

I'm pretty good at converting into and out of metric.  But I don't visualize it. And Troy, or for that matter carats, I can't convert. I got to look it up.

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

[Subdeacon Joe]

35 minutes ago, Alpo said:

Troy pounds are not the same as pounds pounds. I don't know if they're heavier or lighter but I know they're not the same. Just like troy ounces. I don't know if they're heavier or if they're lighter but I know they're not the same as a regular ounce

 

A Troy ounce is heavier than am ounce Avoirdupois, a pound Troy is lighter than a pound Avoirdupois.

 

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

I started in Troy because that's how they price precious metals. They say that it cost umpty ump per troy ounce. So if I have this much money worth of the precious metal, I have X amount of troy ounces or Y amount of Troy pounds of the metal.

 

But I don't know how much that is because I don't think in Troy. I know that Troy pounds are not the same as pounds pounds. I don't know if they're heavier or lighter but I know they're not the same. Just like troy ounces. I don't know if they're heavier or if they're lighter but I know they're not the same as a regular ounce.

 

If you told me that thing was 47 cm long I would have to convert it (that would be right around 19 inches). If you tell me it's 19 inches long I can visualize how long that is, but I have no clue how long 47 cm is. I don't think in centimeters.

 

I'm pretty good at converting into and out of metric.  But I don't visualize it. And Troy, or for that matter carats, I can't convert. I got to look it up.

Well for gold 24 karats is pure, for gems carats are weight with one karat = 0.2 grams.  We devised this system in order to make some people perpetually perplexed.

[Alpo]

On the subject of gold.

 

Has anyone ever heard of there being Nazi gold refineries?

 

Used to hear about Nazi gold all the time. It would be plot points in TV and movies and books. And there are two types of Nazi gold.

 

There is the bullion that they stole from the banks of the countries they invaded. This is 24 karat.

 

Then there is the gold that they stole from the people they killed. Jewelry, dental gold, eyeglass gold.

 

And all of that is harder than 24 karat. Less pure. Jewelry runs between 14 and 18 karat. Dental gold is about 10, because it needs to be strong. Glasses frames are about 12 because they don't need to be as strong as teeth but they need to be stronger than wedding rings. And if you just throw all of that in a pot and melt it down and cast it into ingots, it's gold but it ain't GOLD.

 

But I've never heard of them refining it. I've just heard of them melting down the gold they stole from the corpses.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

If I had a 9 lb. bar of gold on my bathroom, (American), scale, how big would it be?

[Sedalia Dave]

8 hours ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

Redo your math...

 

Volume of 1 Troy Oz., we have 31.1/19.3 = 1.611 cubic centimeters.

 

$5,300,000 / $1900 per troy oz = 2789.474 Troy Ounces * 1.611 =  7243.976 cc = 1.914 gallons

 

Note that the above values are rounded to the third decimal place. My calculations were carried out to the 10th decimal place to avoid rounding errors.

 

Corrected a major math error.

 

I corrected a major math error.  Shouldn't have done so many unit conversions.

[Eyesa Horg]

5 hours ago, bgavin said:

The Troy ounce thing reminds me of the 9 oz bottles of Trail Boss they [edit] sold, but at prices typical of a full pound.

Kinda like the 13oz pound of coffee! 

[Sedalia Dave]

11 minutes ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

If I had a 9 lb. bar of gold on my bathroom, (American), scale, how big would it be?

 

9 lbs US = 131.25 troy ounces * 1.611 = 211.444 cc = 12.903 cu in

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

6 minutes ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

9 lbs US = 131.25 troy ounces * 1.611 = 211.444 cc = 12.903 cu in

THANK YOU!

[bgavin]

That's an extra 9 lbs I wouldn't mind putting on.

2.34" cube

 

That is why I have to laugh when the movies show the Bad Guys hefting these bags of gold bars.

[Blackwater 53393]

$5,300,000.00 divided by $1,900.00, (your estimated price per Troy ounce)=2,789.47 Troy ounces.
 

There are 14.583 Troy ounces to the standard pound. 2,789.47 divided by 14.583=191.283 pounds.

 

So let me be sure that I am seeing the same numbers that Alpo is quoting. Five point three million dollars is the value of the gold bar he is transporting and his estimated price per Troy oz. is one thousand nine hundred dollars.

 

That’s way more than the nine pounds that he figured.

 

Gold weighs 11.060 standard ounces per cubic inch.  There are 3,060.5 ounces in 191.283 pounds.

 

That comes out to 276.72 cubic inches. SO! Let’s make that bar 12” long for the sake of argument. This gives us an area of 23.060 square inches. If we divide that area by 4, making our bar four inches wide and twelve inches long, that leaves the thickness/height of our bar at five point seventy-seven inches, or 12” X 4” X 5.77”.

 

The standard gold bar is 7” X 3 5/8” X 1 3/4” and weighs right at 400 Troy ounces. It’s present value is $790,800.00

 

The actual price of gold when I checked, a few minutes ago, was $1,977.00 per Troy ounce, so the bar we’re imagining would actually be somewhat smaller.

 

Somebody check my figures in case I missed something!

 

EDIT: I hope ol’ Alpo has a nice cart or hand truck to move that “bar” around!!