If you were to go back in time 100 years, how many coins would you need to survive?

Let's say you got in a time machine and were able to go back 100 or more years. Would, say a roll of $20 Liberties (20) be enough to make the transition and survive? How much gold would you need to actually be considered wealthy? :smile

 

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If I could buy gold coins at face value.... Just drooled a bit.

 

Since the average lifespan of that time was 50, 47 for men. Average yearly income between $200-$400. Top death rate from Pneumonia and influenza ( no antibiotics), Tuberculosis ( no cure or treatment then ) and diarrhea ( poor water and food sanitation), 90% of medical doctors had no college education, but morphine, marijuana , and heroin were over the counter drugs.

Given the choice, I prefer to stay "now" and buy what gold I want rather than go "then" and be dead. The "good old times" usually weren't.

 

I think a better investment would have been that uncirculated roll of 1909 S vdb cents that I could have picked up for $.50.

 

Would be a pretty easy question to answer.
1. Determine what you consider "wealthy" by current standards.
2. Adjust this value to account for inflation.
3. Look up the value of gold by mass 100 yrs ago.
4. Calculate the number of gold coins.

Although, if you were going to be transported back 100 years then it would be pretty simple to become obscenely wealthy based on knowledge. Like Desertgem said, the top killers were pneumonia and the flu. Learn how to produce penicillin before you go back and, ding, Billionaire (or the historical equivalent anyway).

 

But all science fiction fans ( especially Twilight Zone) knows that your penicillin would cause anaphylaxic shock to one of your sensitive progenitors, and zap! you disappear due to the fact they never produced your line.

And it was only a few years before the Spanish Flu of 1918 that killed almost 700,000 americans ( mostly age 20-40) when the population was just about 100 million. 28% of US population either had it or died from it.

Our foreparents were hardy people in general. Remember the old saying " People plan and God laughs"

 

I"d bring currency. There are many of the time that are much cheaper then gold and you could always exchange them for coin when you get there.
That's what I do

 

How much gold to be considered wealthy...greed says all of it. Corporate america say 51% of it, and hong kong capitalism say we'll sell you all the gold you want, you can't take possession of it because we don't have it. Then we take that money and invest it for our profit and use the gold we sold you and don't have to take out credit loans at banks to start a global conglomorate and get shareholders like yourselves to invest on the premise that we own all the gold and are selling all of the gold and yet we have zero gold in possession.

 

And the knowledge of antibiotics you took back with you wouldn't protect you from it because virus aren't affected by antibiotics.

 

The flu is caused by a virus, which antibiotics do not affect. But most deaths associated with the flu are actually attributable to resulting respiratory infections, which is where the benefit of antibiotics would come into play.

 

If I could go back 100 years, my professional skills (computers) would be useless, so I daresay I better bring plenty of double eagles with me.
That or the racing results!

 

If I went back far enough I'd be rich if I took a 100lbs of
nails with me.

 

How much would a king or queen from the
1500's pay for a world map?

Of course the Washington Beltway
would have to be clearly marked
"Here be monsters."

 

]I would pick up a 1873s seated liberty dollar in 1873. I would want more cornets.

 

Well considering you went back 100 years and it is 1912 you missed out on the 73-S. And he never said anything about coming back. I interpreted it to mean how much would you have to take back with you to set yourself up and survive until you can start providing for yourself in that society.

 

I was thinking of it as a one-way trip.

Most of us would be doing farm or factory work. That was the predominant work then. With money you would have many options. With knowledge about world events you could make some pretty sharp business decisions. Some of us might try to save a relative that had an accident; of course the fates would never allow this as history would be irrevokebly changed.

 

I'd be doing slave labor on the Panama Canal or on the verge of heading for the trenches.

 

Can we Steampunk this? I'd like to a land a zepplin
in London around 1750 and drop off a steam
powered computer. That ought to mess things
up good.

 

You arent thinking radical enough! Weld the charger to your macbook air, and melt the plug into a steam electricity generator, with a sign to not put water on the blasted thing. Then, drive it, in a motor boat, to the island crete, just before athens becomes powerful. That will screw it beyond repair, erase the wars between athens and sparta, because athens would have been destroyed. Only sparta would be left. That, is how you warp time.

Edit: It could happen that after athens and the rest of greece were gone, sparta and crete could join, boat out over to the peninsula of italy, and destroy rome before it starts, after re-taking all of greece. The Macedonians would not attack greece, and Alexander the great could have joined with sparta and crete, creating an amazing empire. That is what we get for hypothetically messing with time.

 

But I want to see if somone strikes a condor
token with a steampunk computer on it.