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> According to the May 2021 edition of The Sunday Times Rich List, Queen Elizabeth II has a personal net worth of £365m. A whopping £100 million of that alone a

> According to the May 2021 edition of The Sunday Times Rich List, Queen Elizabeth II has a personal net worth of £365m. A whopping £100 million of that alone accounts for the queen's family's personal stamp collection, known as the Royal Philatelic Collection.

gorgoiler 5y ago
It’s fun to include the hypothetical market value of ones stuff in ones net worth. It’s not particularly instructive. It would also be interesting to know HMQE2’s liquid assets. It is all too common to be castle-rich and cash-poor.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  It does get bit more interesting when the wealth has yearly net-cost... And really can not be liquidated. And some wealth brings more yearly than some other. With royalty and old upper-class this likely doesn't compare to more modern wealth.
- spaced-out 5y ago
  > It’s not particularly instructive. I think the fact that one inherited dozens of castles and mansions that one can make exclusive use of, including lending them to people as political favors, including that one one's net worth is instructive.
  - gorgoiler 5y ago
    Right, but if I have 9 nuclear warheads and you have a net worth of $90b, who is the more powerful? (Assume a spherical warhead, with market value of $4m.)
    - spaced-out 5y ago
      What good are nuclear weapons? I'd rather have Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Holyrood Palace, Balmoral Castle, and a bunch of other properties, a giant vault full of treasure stolen from all over the world, plus titles I can dole out as political favors. $90b can't buy that.
flir 5y ago
In the very first Times Rich List (1989), the Queen was at the top on £5.2bn. Where has all the wealth gone? It hasn't. The Times changed the rules for the Queen (and only the Queen) after a nice note from the palace. Now, things she has full use of but can't sell aren't included (eg the Royal Collection).
- tim333 5y ago
  A lot of the ownership is ambiguous between the Queen personally and the state.
  - mattowen_uk 5y ago
    Why are we talking about the 'Queen' like she's a private citizen who could cash out, and take all that money to a privately owned island in the Bahamas? Being 'Queen' is a job. She's effectively the CEO of a company (which is why it's informally called 'the firm'). She also works hard and has worked hard as a key member of the firm all her life. Being upset at the Queen for being rich, is like being upset at the board members of an international bank. It's not her personal money, that she can take with her if she stopped being the Monarch, in fact she has less of an option to do that. The Monarchy does so much for this country via tourism and and international relations, that we'd be worse off without them. Calculations have proven that they MAKE money for the country despite the huge cost in keeping the institution running.
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      > The Monarchy does so much for this country via tourism and and international relations, that we'd be worse off without them. This is the crap the royal family's press department churns out, to be repeated by fawning journalists trailing their every move. More tourists visit Paris than London. Unlike in London, they can go inside those palaces and see the art collections. The presidential guards in Athens or Moscow still do a ridiculous dance when they change shift, and Britain could keep their equivalent in a republic if it's what tourists want to see. Republics choose who represents them. If they want a conman with no respect for women, they can vote for Trump. They can change their minds and vote for someone else a few years later. Britain has Prince Andrew anyway.
redis_mlc 5y ago
The Royal family and friends own greater London, probably worth a trillion dollars. They're not required to file deeds on the land, so nobody can inventory or value it with any certainty. In the private world, U2, Rush and Irwin own city-sized land parcels in urban areas.

gorgoiler 5y ago

It’s fun to include the hypothetical market value of ones stuff in ones net worth. It’s not particularly instructive. It would also be interesting to know HMQE2’s liquid assets. It is all too common to be castle-rich and cash-poor.

Ekaros 5y ago
It does get bit more interesting when the wealth has yearly net-cost... And really can not be liquidated. And some wealth brings more yearly than some other. With royalty and old upper-class this likely doesn't compare to more modern wealth.
spaced-out 5y ago
> It’s not particularly instructive. I think the fact that one inherited dozens of castles and mansions that one can make exclusive use of, including lending them to people as political favors, including that one one's net worth is instructive.
- gorgoiler 5y ago
  Right, but if I have 9 nuclear warheads and you have a net worth of $90b, who is the more powerful? (Assume a spherical warhead, with market value of $4m.)
  - spaced-out 5y ago
    What good are nuclear weapons? I'd rather have Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Holyrood Palace, Balmoral Castle, and a bunch of other properties, a giant vault full of treasure stolen from all over the world, plus titles I can dole out as political favors. $90b can't buy that.

flir 5y ago

In the very first Times Rich List (1989), the Queen was at the top on £5.2bn. Where has all the wealth gone? It hasn't. The Times changed the rules for the Queen (and only the Queen) after a nice note from the palace. Now, things she has full use of but can't sell aren't included (eg the Royal Collection).

tim333 5y ago
A lot of the ownership is ambiguous between the Queen personally and the state.
- mattowen_uk 5y ago
  Why are we talking about the 'Queen' like she's a private citizen who could cash out, and take all that money to a privately owned island in the Bahamas? Being 'Queen' is a job. She's effectively the CEO of a company (which is why it's informally called 'the firm'). She also works hard and has worked hard as a key member of the firm all her life. Being upset at the Queen for being rich, is like being upset at the board members of an international bank. It's not her personal money, that she can take with her if she stopped being the Monarch, in fact she has less of an option to do that. The Monarchy does so much for this country via tourism and and international relations, that we'd be worse off without them. Calculations have proven that they MAKE money for the country despite the huge cost in keeping the institution running.
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    > The Monarchy does so much for this country via tourism and and international relations, that we'd be worse off without them. This is the crap the royal family's press department churns out, to be repeated by fawning journalists trailing their every move. More tourists visit Paris than London. Unlike in London, they can go inside those palaces and see the art collections. The presidential guards in Athens or Moscow still do a ridiculous dance when they change shift, and Britain could keep their equivalent in a republic if it's what tourists want to see. Republics choose who represents them. If they want a conman with no respect for women, they can vote for Trump. They can change their minds and vote for someone else a few years later. Britain has Prince Andrew anyway.

redis_mlc 5y ago

The Royal family and friends own greater London, probably worth a trillion dollars. They're not required to file deeds on the land, so nobody can inventory or value it with any certainty. In the private world, U2, Rush and Irwin own city-sized land parcels in urban areas.