The introduction to the ODNB at http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/prelims/intro gives some other useful points of comparison. (Roughly: 50,000 articles, 10,000 contributors, GBP26 million, and 12 years (1992-2004), not counting the work on the old DNB or the post-2004 material for the new.)
So, by the enormously suspect calculation of applying the ODNB's cost per word to en.wikipedia's wordcount, it seems that you could create such an encyclopedia, to the highest academic standards, for the cost of about two small Alaskan bridges.
The introduction to the ODNB at http://www.oup.com/oxforddnb/info/prelims/intro gives some other useful points of comparison. (Roughly: 50,000 articles, 10,000 contributors, GBP26 million, and 12 years (1992-2004), not counting the work on the old DNB or the post-2004 material for the new.)
So, by the enormously suspect calculation of applying the ODNB's cost per word to en.wikipedia's wordcount, it seems that you could create such an encyclopedia, to the highest academic standards, for the cost of about two small Alaskan bridges.