I remember that the coins in Bellatrix's vault (Deathly Hallows) were cursed with the Gemino and Flagrante charms. Those were probably special coins which were permeable to such magic. What stops the normal Galleons, Knuts and Sickles from being duplicated? Is it mentioned anywhere?
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2The dupes are worthless, so why not use the Geminio charm as protection? :D – LepelLeLama Mar 03 '15 at 09:21
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@LepelLeLama that's what I mentioned. They are duplicates. But what about the real ones? Can they be duplicated? – Kanishka Ganguly Mar 03 '15 at 09:50
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2I think what Lepel meant is that the coins and jewels were probably real but the dupes that appear upon touch are worthless. Probably under the assumption that you can easily detect the dupes or maybe they will dissappear after a while or even after leaving the vault or Gringotts itself. – Dagon313 Mar 03 '15 at 10:36
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@Dagon313 - Pretty much yea. They don't need to prevent Gemino from being cast on the coins, because they dupes would be worthless anyway. It would make more sense to actually cast it on the coins as an extra measure of security! :D – LepelLeLama Mar 04 '15 at 05:56
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I don't know what, if anything, stops Gringotts coins from being duplicated.
Wonderbook (walkthrough), a video game with spell descriptions written by J.K. Rowling, gives some detail about the Gemino Curse:
The Doubling Charm. Don't get too excited, none of the duplicates are actually worthy anything. [...] The Doubling Charm has caused trouble from its discovery. Many disputes have arisen around the question of whether a copy created b the Gemino Curse is of equal value to its pair. As the two are identical at first it is impossible to know, although the copy usually rots or tarnishes much more quickly.
So even if you could duplicate Gringotts coins, they wouldn't be useful for very long.
I would be unsurprised if there were special enchantments to prevent forgeries, duplicate or tampering, but I don't know of any canon sources which confirm that. (Perhaps it's impossible to prevent duplicate, in which case maybe they just modify the coins to accelerate the decomposition.)
I don't know what, if anything, we can draw from the coins in the Lestrange vault. They could be real wizarding coins – the Ministry and Gringotts don't seem to raid prisoner vaults, as evidenced by Sirius's hoard – or they could be a historical hoard of Muggle coins, as the pure-blood families rubbed shoulders with the Muggle aristocracy before the Statute of Secrecy was imposed.
alexwlchan
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Sir, take 2 Galleons from my hoard for that wonderful answer. – Kanishka Ganguly Mar 03 '15 at 20:43
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The only reason I was wondering about this was that if such a thing was truly possible, then there should be no particular reason why the Weasleys should be poor. The only other thing I can think of would be some in-depth magical theory, like Gamp's Laws that would inherently prevent currency from being duplicated. – Kanishka Ganguly Mar 03 '15 at 20:45
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@KanishkaGanguly There’s speculation that money is affected by Gamp’s Law, e.g. this question. As for the Weasleys, if it were possible for them to conjure up more money, then everybody (or at least many people) would do it, and the magical economy would collapse. – alexwlchan Mar 03 '15 at 20:46
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I wish J.K. wrote a book like Tolkien about the history and background of the Potter paradigm. Would clear up a lot of controversies. – Kanishka Ganguly Mar 03 '15 at 20:48
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@KanishkaGanguly Have you heard of Pottermore? It’s a site where J.K. Rowling is (slowly) posting a lot of the notes and background material from the books. You’ll often see it quoted in answers around the site. – alexwlchan Mar 03 '15 at 21:46
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Actually I do visit that site quite often. Reliable source, yes. Exhaustive? Not quite. – Kanishka Ganguly Mar 03 '15 at 21:48
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@KanishkaGanguly - The reason the Weasleys are poor simply because you cant conjure up money, and the copied coins from the geminio spell are worthless, so pointless to try and get wealthy from that :P – LepelLeLama Mar 04 '15 at 05:55
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@KanishkaGanguly God please no, the more J.K.Rowling writes about the Harry Potter universe, the more controversies and inconsistencies will pop up. – Dagon313 Mar 04 '15 at 09:14
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@Dagon313 But think about it, wouldn't it be nice to have some perspective and context? – Kanishka Ganguly Mar 04 '15 at 11:42
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@LepelLeLama The assumption I made was that the coins in the Lestrange vault wasn't actual magical currency but something duplicate or fake from the beginning. Hence even their Geminio versions would be worthless. But what if it were that actual Galleons were allowed to be duplicated, even if for a short while? That would solve the money issue for the Weasleys albeit temporarily. – Kanishka Ganguly Mar 04 '15 at 11:46
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@KanishkaGanguly Maybe that would work short-term, but the magical community is fairly small. There aren't that many shopkeepers. I think you'd be found out (and shunned from society) fairly quickly. – alexwlchan Mar 04 '15 at 13:56
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@KanishkaGanguly- I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say. No matter who's vault it was, if you use gemino on the coins(whether they are real or fake) the copies would be worthless. So- if I have one Galleon, cast gemino on it, then touch it to duplicate it, I'll still have one Galleon, but multiple worthless copies. Those copies are worthless regardless of their time in existance.(ofcourse- I cant provide canon proof, but the little situations we have to go on I believe it's safe to make this assumption) – LepelLeLama Mar 04 '15 at 13:58
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@LepelLeLama I agree. But then that was the question in the first place. There is no particular evidence to suggest that the copies would be "worthless", so to speak. Let's pose said question to Ms. Rowling somehow, let's see what she might have to say! – Kanishka Ganguly Mar 04 '15 at 14:02
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@KanishkaGanguly- Fair enough, but the scene in the Lestranges vault suggest that the copies are indeed worthless. – LepelLeLama Mar 04 '15 at 14:06
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