Let's go back to 1968

I'd like to go back to 1989 and sell my MS65 Morgan Dollars for $500 each.

 

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I am sure that some people would like to go back then and sell their old commemorative half dollars for $1,600 that are now selling for $300.

If you happen see a copy of the Breen - Swiatek book, Silver & Gold Commemorative Coins 1892 to 1954, check out the price projections for the "old" commemorative coins in the back of the book. They are enough to make your fall on the floor and laugh out loud.

For example, they projected that an York, Maine commemorative half dollar would be selling for $4,500 + in MS-65 in 1990. The rest of their projections were equally ludicrous. This is a good book, but this foolishness was stuck in there for the benefit of the late and unlamented First Coinvesters Company.

 

I would just as soon go back to 1968......as I was in Vietnam experiencing the Tet Offensive. Maybe May of 68 as I was safe at home!

 

I have it and think of it as numismatic fiction - the price estimates, anyway.
It is definitely an underpriced area of US numismatics.

 

I bought my first new car in 1968. A 1968 Camaro SS 350. Cost was right at $3000. That's not even a downpayment today.

 

I bought a new Javelin in 1973. I think the sticker was around $3,600. My first car was a used 1968 Javelin which had $16,000 miles on it for $1,600.

 

I used to have a 1968 Mustang...

 

Old guys remember the old days. They just forget what it was really like. First, back in 1968 what kind of computer did you use to log in to your favorite coin chat board? Were you getting your Internet from your TV company or was it TV from your ISP? What was Disney charging compared to Time-Warner? Or were you just getting Time magazine once a week and watching Surfside Six, Maverick, and other Warner Brothers shows when they came on once a week?

Actually, while you can cherrypick your selections, just about everything in the 1968 Red Book is either (a) exactly the same or (b) cheaper in terms of opportunity cost. Standard of living things you give up to buy the coin, like this for $251 right now, measure your opportunity cost.



In the summer of 1966, I was a high school kid on my first summer job in a hospital laboratory for which this would have been science fiction.

Well, OK, while the Covid recession has yet to be tallied, just before it hit, grocery stores here in Austin were bumping up to $12 per hour. So, again, relatively speaking, it has not changed much.

Some things never change. We have good times and bad, for some people and for others. The strong interest on this board for ancient coins brings us article after article about history that sounds just like today. Fel Temp Reparatio: the return of good times = Make America Great Again. Rome celebrates its 1000th year and then a plague kills thousands. Historical advocacy is the examination and understanding of what makes good times. It's complicated.

Way more car today. Did your classic have cameras side and back, a built-in movie screen, surround sound stereo from satellite radio that plays what you programmed it play for you, 18 cup holders? Seat belts, even? (And did you actually wear them?) We killed the same number of people on the roads then and now, but we have twice the number of Americans. So automobile deaths are down 50% mostly because cars are safer - and we know how to drive them.

Also, did your '68 Camaro come with a standard 100,000 mile warranty?

I get the house argument. We owned a home that was built in 1932 and we now rent in one now that was built in 1982. Everything about the little Cape Cod was quality, the materials, the workmanship. This place is "contractor grade" junk. But, there was the Pete Seeger song "Little Boxes" actually written by Malvina Reynolds about Levittown and other middle class tract housing ghettoes that blossomed after World War Two and into which many old guys here were born.

Still, this ticky-tacky house is more house than the equivalents from the 1950s. We have central air, for one thing and storm windows (with screens) for another. Watch an old movie sometime, like The Thin Man from 1940, and his father-in-law the doctor in the suburbs did not have screens on the windows.

Well, in 2017, I was working with young officers in the Texas National Guard who were born into a time that has never known peace. Now, at least, we do not have conscription. As a libertarian, I approve, but, if you look at the sociology, what we have now is an isolated military that few Americans actually know. My dad was drafted for Korea. His older brothers were drafted for WWII. So, when Vietnam happened that generation included many who had fought and were therefore against the involvement in Vietnam. Today's "Forever War" is far away and happening to other people. Current Afghan-Iraq Casualties here: http://icasualties.org/App/AfghanFatalities

 

I would never dispute that most things are better now. If I had "WORD" when I was in college, writing a term paper would have been ten times easier, and I would put out a better product. All I had was a darned out manual typewriter. Everytime you made a typo, you had to try to fix it. If you left out word, the whole page I had spent half an hour typing was toast.

As for the cars, today's cars usually run much better and have far more features. The big step forward with the 8-track player. The sound mediocre, but at least I could play what I wanted to hear. After I got an 8-track recorder, it got even better.

The one thing I do miss in today’s cars is the CD player. Buick used to have a 12 disk handler in the trunk, and that was the best system. The computer clips are okay, but they go bad after a while and have to be replaced.

 

I was only 11 in 1968. My brother who was also my best friend, left for the Navy. My life changed. We never got to see each other again.

 

Old school guys like us don't need all those gizmos. Except the seat belts. I remember helping my dad install seat belts on our old 1961 Dodge Dart Seneca. But just give me the basics and I'm fine. How many younger folks these days know how to drive a stick shift???

 

Actually it seems that quite a few youngsters can drive a stick...very few of them can use a column shifter, though.

 

I never new that before Larry. I lost a cousin......not the same as a brother, but it still hurt. He was an only child and I am an only child so we were always like brothers.

 

How young are we talking? I’ve drive a stick shift everyday. It’s been my daily driver since I was 23...12 years now.

 

I disagree. When you get older, blind spot indicators on the mirrors and surround cameras for pulling into parking spaces and navigating in tight spots are great safety devices. Changing lanes at 70 miles per hour is one of the potentially dangerous maneuvers one most perform on the modern super highways.

 

One of the Greatest pictures since cameras were invented was taken in 1968.

 

I 100% agree with you. This in my opinion, is the best photograph taken during the space program. Taken on Christmas Eve.

I also love the audio that went with the photo...with mission commander Frank Borman telling Bill Anders not to take the photo as it was not scheduled (although he was clearly joking).