Myth 14 | Angel Statues Are Very Expensive

Myth 14 | Angel Statues Are Very Expensive

Ah, how much does an Angel Moroni Statue cost? There are many inside and outside of the temple that see a gilded statue atop a temple to be frivolous, extravagant expense. This is one question you will probably never find an answer to, and one the Church is certainly unlikely to ever answer.

However, a statue is made from three things these days. And a range of weights for the statues are known. And estimates can be made as to how much a statue could reasonably be considered to cost.

Each of the modern statues weighs between 220 and 500 pounds, and consists of essentially 3 parts:

• Steel and non-conductive metal center structure
• Fiberglass shell
• Gold leaf

Of the three components, the most likely to change the weight of the statue are the steel and metal center section.^[1]Young, Richard, Personal Interview with Brian Olson and Marvin Quist, 10 July 2018. Next heavy would be the shell, with the leafing making up the smallest weight. So, let’s do some estimating and find out how much a statue potentially costs.

I have learned a thing or two from someone who has worked with the statues before,^[2]Interview by Brian Olson of Aaron Allen, painter, gilder, 10 August 2019 and I have put together some numbers: For a small statue, about 7 feet head to heel, the weight is typically around 220 lbs. This breaks down to being about 140 pounds of fiberglass, with about 80 pounds of steel. Gold leaf comes in at around ½ an ounce.

For the larger statues, these numbers are roughly double, so 280 for the fiberglass, 160 for steel, but still under an ounce for the leafing.

Looking online, we learn that steel can be purchased for about $0.45 a pound. Fiberglass costs 3.33* per pound. Gold leaf typically costs about 1,400* per ounce.

Using these estimates, let’s deduce the cost of a statue now.

Total Wt.	Steel	* $0.45	Fiber glass	* $3.33	Leaf (max)	* $1,400	Total
220	140	$63	80	$266.40	.5oz	$700	$1029.40
440	280	$126	160	$532.80	1oz	$1,400	$2058.80
660	420	$189	240	$799.20	1.5oz	$2,100	$2529.00

These numbers are, in truth, just estimates, though with a good foundation.

The REAL cost of a statue is not in the materials. It’s in the skilled hands that create the statue, the artisans who gild it, the hands and equipment that install it. All the cost of a statue is actually in the creation, placement and eventual replacement, not in the materials. ^[3]A reasonable estimate from individuals involved put the cost of materials at about 1/6th the total cost of materials, construction, and installation for the statue. With that understanding, consider that the cost of, just for one example, the stonework inside the temple can exceed $1,000,000 in materials alone. When you sit and contemplate the cost of even the most mundane materials in a temple, the statue becomes one of the cheapest things, labor cost included, to go into the ornamentation and construction of a temple.

*as of time of original publishing

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