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I'm particularly interested in these two writers because Carl Barks was the original, while Don Rosa innovated heavily while intentionally staying very true to the original.

Scrooge frequently makes remarks on his wealth: it is Five multiplujillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and sixteen cents according to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Unfortunately, we have no idea what that means in real life.

There have been several attempts at estimating his wealth. Forbes claims that McDuck compares his wealth to 21.4% the value of Fort Knox, arriving at an estimate of $44.1 billion. Unfortunately I'm unable to find the source for this quote.

On the other hand, this article estimates the volume of silver in the money bin and arrives at an estimate of $27 Trillion. However, it is limited by the way in which it doesn't account for Scrooge's treasures, businesses and external investments.

EDIT: Many thanks to user14111 for pointing out errors in calculation in the second link

Darjeeling
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Twilight Sparkle
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    I'm sorry I wasn't clear. It's not a calculation error, it's how Wolf Gnards interprets Carl Barks's wonderfully silly "cubic acre". What I tried to point out was that Mr. Gnard's interpretation was quite arbitrary. Using the same logic but expressing an acre in square miles instead of square feet, you get a cube about the size of a pea; using square millimeters, you get something the size of a small planet. – user14111 Mar 30 '14 at 10:15
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    There is also a problem about the value of his coins. Sometimes the coins are made of silver, sometimes gold (I think that this is a coloring problem with the printed books). Don Rosa always states that the correct coins are made of silver, even if in all Cark Barks paintings they are printed gold. This could create a gap in the real value of his fortune. –  Jun 25 '15 at 03:54

3 Answers3

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As of Uncle Scrooge Issue 341, his net worth is approximately $315,569,400,000,000,000.

A magic hourglass causes him to lose a billion dollars a minute. He opines that he'll be bankrupt "in 600 years" at that rate. The math from that point is quite simple.

This of course doesn't take into account any interest charges, ongoing investments (he's known to own a railway, goldmines, silver mines, shipping lines, etc etc) or guaranteed income from bonds and certificates, nor does it take into account that this is more than the combined net worth of all worldwide currency, assets and infrastructure.

Magic Hourglass

Valorum
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    So Essentially he's 315 quadrillion dollars. – DoctorWho22 Mar 30 '14 at 14:15
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    @DoctorWho22 - Well, since that's more than the whole amount of money in the world you might just as well say Gazillionaire – Valorum Mar 30 '14 at 14:20
  • True but that's the actual word used for 17 0's in a number. – DoctorWho22 Mar 31 '14 at 13:23
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    @DoctorWho22 - Actually a one with seventeen zeros would be "a hundred quadrillion". A gazillion is a fictitious number meaning very large; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefinite_and_fictitious_numbers – Valorum Mar 31 '14 at 15:06
  • Yeah your right meant to say his amount is 17 numbers. And you could say he's a gazillionaire but if you wanted to be accurate about the dollar amount you could say Quadrillionaire as well because it depicts the amount precisely. – DoctorWho22 Mar 31 '14 at 15:36
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    Gah! He's wasting away, he's already becoming skin and bones... – Möoz Sep 24 '15 at 01:17
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This image, taken from "His Majesty, McDuck" first published in Uncle Scrooge Adventures #14, shows how much tax money Scrooge has paid in his life:

enter image description here

We can see at least 10 lines with 9 0s on each line. There is at least 4 pages, so that means Scrooge has paid at least 1*10e360$. So he has at least that much money.

fez
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ProfessorPrel
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    It looks like the image you posted is a miniature. Upon clicking on it, it's too small to actually see the numbers. – Clockwork Dec 01 '22 at 14:45
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    This is possibly a great answer. Please get a new image! – TheAsh Dec 01 '22 at 15:57
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    This is an amazing answer. I think a limitation of Stack Exchange's format is that it doesn't adequately reward later answers which are hidden below accepted and old answers. Please change the image and I will accept your answer to give it more prominence. Thanks for doing the research. – Twilight Sparkle Dec 01 '22 at 17:23
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    I've taken the liberty of including a higher-res image, plus the name of the comic where the image is from – fez Dec 02 '22 at 07:30
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    It does look like the first page could be comprised of 10 lines, which makes 9 lines of 9 zeroes, plus the 6 first zeroes, which makes 87 zeroes on the first page. Assuming the 2 other page plus the page with additional zeroes also have 10 lines each, it would be 3 pages of 10 lines of 9 zeroes for an extra 270 zeroes, for a total of 357. And that would equate to how much overtaxed he's owed for his 10-acre hill over 50 years. Although it may not show how much his current fortune is, nor how much he had during the past 50 years, it does tell us he's at least that richer after the tax refund. – Clockwork Dec 02 '22 at 07:44
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    What does this really tell us, though? Since this is supposedly what he paid in taxes over 50 years, we can't assume that he ever had this amount of money at any single point in the past. And part of the story is that he does not get that tax refund, so we can't assume that as a consequence he will ever have this amount of money in the future. – Philipp Dec 02 '22 at 12:25
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    This is worthy of an answer, but I fail to see why it's worthy of an acceptance. At best we know how much tax he's owed as a refund, noting that he doesn't get that money back by the end of the comic; https://i.stack.imgur.com/tqdDG.png – Valorum Dec 02 '22 at 12:27
  • @Valorum While yes, he does not get back that money, most super duper rich people like Scrooge pays very little tax, so Scrooge likely has at least around this much. We also do not see the exact amount of pages, so the number I gave is a bit of a lowball. And when we deal with numbers this big, even if Scrooge pays 99% tax, it really doesnt make that big of a difference, even if it is over 50 years – ProfessorPrel Dec 02 '22 at 17:20
  • @Philipp When dealing with numbers as big as this, even if he only have 1% of this number, it really dorsnt make a dent – ProfessorPrel Dec 02 '22 at 17:22
  • @ProfessorPrel - All we've got is Scrooge's own calculation. I would imagine the US Treasury would have issues with the Inland Revenue issuing a rebate that was greater than the entire US Federal Reserve and GDP combined and ask to do their own calculation. Either way, this is, at best, a reflection of how much money he earned over his lifetime, not his net wealth at any point in his life. – Valorum Dec 02 '22 at 17:24
  • @Valorum I guess you are right. But at the end of the comic, the treasure agent did confirm Scrooges calculation was right. And since Scrooge is not a big spender, and dividing 1.0*10e360 by 50 does not make a big difference, I would think my number is pretty accurate – ProfessorPrel Dec 02 '22 at 18:35
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Personally, I don't only believe Barks and Rosa (I think ALL the Disney Comics are in the same continuity), so I could answer you that in the first places the calculs of what quantity of money the Money Bin may content is wrong, because some comics by Marco Rota and Romano Scarpa (and maybe others) show that Scrooge owns many different Money Bins, the one on the Killmotor hill being only his oldest one, and the one where he lives.

But if you want to be only based on Barks and Rosa, then the answer is: impossible to know because Rosa says in Crœsus's treasure that Scrooge gets richer every seconds. So, the answer will be that : it depends from which minute of Scrooge's life you count ! And the silly numbers like "Five multiplujillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and sixteen cents" are only that because Scrooge is so wealthy that he has to invent new numbers (actually, there is no word beyond Quadrillion. Oh, maybe "Zillion" in french, but it's only half-official.

Achille Talon
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    No words beyong 'Quadrillion'? Maybe not those specific words, but there are absolutely recognized words for larger quantities – Jason Baker Mar 07 '15 at 17:58
  • They are absolutely different continuities with many differences, e.g. Don Rosa's Uncle Scrooge is a penitent sinner who wishes to redeem himself for the greedy and ruthless life he has lived by taking care of his nephews. This is not the case with Romano Scarpa's Scrooge. In Don Rosa's canon, Scrooge and Glittering Goldie are star-crossed lovers still deeply in love with each other, and who never married. Scarpa's Goldie has a granddaughter. Scarpa's character, Bridgitta, is madly in love with Scrooge and inserts herself into his life frequently. She doesn't exist in Don Rosa's world. – Twilight Sparkle Mar 07 '15 at 23:00
  • I don't agree with you, Twillight Sparkle, because there are current author that take in count both sources in their stories. And, we ''don't see'' Brigitta in Rosa's stories. And then ? That's not an evidence that she doesn't exist, only that Rosa doesn't like her. And for Scrooge's personality… That's only a ''problem of consistency'', but not an ''evidence that it's not the same world''. Comics publishers always thought all that is in the same universe, and said it in their articles ! – Achille Talon Mar 08 '15 at 18:43
  • Also, Scarpa never said that Goldie got married. He only says she had a child, and then a granddaughter (Chris). A granddaughter who may also be Scrooge's granddaughter… the daughter of a son/daughter Goldie and Scrooge had back in 1898 ! – Achille Talon Mar 08 '15 at 18:51
  • The money bin only has his "cash on hand" and doesn't include the money he has invested – Valorum Nov 17 '17 at 08:36