A Dead Money gold bar costs 10.539 caps and weights 35 pounds. That's 301 cap per pound. For comparison, a .44 Magnum weights 6 lbs and costs 2500 caps. That's 416 caps per pound, and much easier to convert to disposable income. A Ballistic Fist's value-to-weight ratio is a whopping 1300 caps per pound. Ergo, Dead Money gold is a lousy source of caps, and one shouldn't try too hard to bring a lot of them out.

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That's great, but some people (like me) like to use them for decoration. However I just leave the 36 and take one.

P.S. This is really, really late information.

The point of the gold wasnt that it was practical, it's that it's capable of giving you in 310k + but the the point of Dead Money is 'learn to let go'. Hence the godl weighs so much.

And where do you find 50 full condition ballistic fists?

You say this as if caps per pound is a system by which anyone values anything in this game. For comparison, if the Dead Money gold bars had the same weight to value ratio as the ballistic fist (1300 caps per pound), each would would weigh 8.10lbs. With 37 bars, it'd take 300lbs of extra inventory space to be able to get the bars out of the vault without being overencumbered, i.e. if you wanted them all, you'd probably be overencumbed either way. As it takes the same amount of time to move a character overencumbered by 50lbs out of the vault as it does one overencumbered by 1500lbs, there really is no difference (except that it would be easier to leave a few behind).

Not to mention the fact that there is no other place in the game with such a high concentration of value.

Given enough time you could fill any rooom with ballistic fists but there are only that many gold bars in the game...thats the value...so you can say "yeah...I was there and returned with a keepsake."


Sooooo pretty and shiny...........

But getting there? That's not the hard part.
It's getting those damn bars with you when you leave.

When you leave.

When you leave.

Don't forget that there's also weightless objects of high value. At the casinos you can convert caps to chips then to chips to NCR or Legion currency. Since the vendors bug when their caps inventory go over 32767 caps which keeps you from getting caps back on sold items, trading with NCR and/or Legion currency can keep that from happening. I always trade with NCR/Legion currency when buying the big-ticket GRA uniques.

As for the value of the gold bars, given the weight/value ratio and the scarcity of the bars in the game I would have to agree with most of the other posts and say that the worth of the gold bars lies more on the aesthetic/decorative side than the actual caps value.

This has been a fun thread.