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Message:: [QUOTE="Juan Blanco, post: 1580440, member: 41665"]YES, you're absolutely correct: "pound" might not mean 16 ounces avoirdupois and "Dollar" might not mean 371 4/16th grains pure Ag, etc. And I don't presume this is all correct, I'm just testing these different "price levels." A few other famine events might be considered, looking for the most extreme 'Silver/Wheat yardsticks.' From A History of agricultural Prices in England from 1259-1400 ; Arthur George Liddon Rogers, p.197 In the decade or so before, the typical Wheat price range was 4.5 shillings - 7 s., with an average ~ 6s. (£ 0.32, very nearly the average for the last 50 years of the 14th C.) "1315: The evidence for this year is abundant and precise, extending from Northumberland to the south of the Thames, and from Glamorganshire to Cambridge. In most of the accounts, too, the sales are dated, so that it is possible to trace the course of the markets. It is the first year of the great famine. The price of wheat, either in consequence of actual scarcity in the year before, or by anticipation of a total failure of the crop in the present year, was generally but not universally high. And it appears that for some time after such a crop as was gathered had been housed the extent of the calamity was not known. At any rate, it seems that the price though high was not excessive till some time after Christmas. Seed was bought at full and increasing rates, but still at prices to which parallel could be found in past years. Thus in South Wales, Oxfordshire, and the neighbourhood of London, the rate during the winter months was as low as 7s. 4d., and did not exceed 10s. In Cambridge, on the other hand, seed-wheat was dearer than has been known before during the autumn, unless we are to conclude that the corn in this place was spring-sown. About the beginning of February the real state of affairs becomes manifest, and the true famine commences. It is to be observed that the phenomenon is universal, although the highest actual price recorded is at Letherhead, where a sale was effected at 26s. 8d." (£1.34) Retail receipts record the wheat price was £2., but it should be obvious that for an event cited as one of the worst in European history, the highest Wheat price for 14th C. England (famine) was "only" 4.2x greater than the average price, in Silver. At bullion weight and converting the Tower Pound (243 pence) £ 0.09 per Troy Ounce Ag, £ 1.34 is about 14.86 modern English Troy Ounces per 'Quarter' of Wheat (480 lbs. avd.) Equivalent USD$ rate (POS $32.42) = USD$ 1.00 per lb.avd. wheat, wholesale. ~ $1.50 per lb.avd for wheat retail (1315 rate) or the same multiple as my local US wholesale>retail markup,~ USD$ 10./lb. for Wheat, retail? Certainly hope we don't see $10./lb for raw wheat anytime, but that's one historical famine price: I doubt the USA has ever witnessed that ever or relatively (inflation-adjusted.) Siena, Italy January 1329: 1 staio wheat (~ 1 US Bushel) = 1 florin (@67 soldi) ...14 grossi @ 1.7 grams @ .965 Fine? >> ~ 23.8 grams Ag = 3.5 grams of Au (Questionable; daily coin-rates) ...Equivalent USD$ rate (POG $1747) = USD$ 2.56 per lb./avd. wholesale; ~ $5. retail? (Still, Questionable.) The 1801 English Wheat Price would be another extreme datapoint, fwiw. (The average 1780s price is 6.14x higher than 1315, due to inflation.) March 1801 was the absolute highest recorded English Wheat Price in the pre-modern period.Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 6 (p.154) excerpts Tooke's History of Prices: "Now the price {per bushel, in England or Wales} for twelve years, ending 1794, was for wheat 6s. 10d., and for barley 3s. 3d. {...} In December of the same year (after a slight depression from favourable appearances in the harvest) the average of wheat again rose to 133s.; barley, 76s. 7d.; oats, 41s. 8d. The sufferings of the people were very great; but prices still advanced, until, in March 1801, wheat had reached 156s. 2d.; barley 90s., and oats 47s. 2d. Meat and dairy produce rose in proportion..." From ~1794-1801, the English bushel price rose from £0.34 to £ 7.80, 22.82x Despite this, Tooke said there were few recorded deaths by destitution! Silver dollars coined at the English Mint sold @ £0.3081 per ounce Troy Fine Ag, so (at bullion rates) 1 bushel of English Wheat went from $ 1.11 > $25.32 in 'Pillar Dollars.'The retail price was whatever multiple of $0.3164 (in 1801 UK$ coin) consistent with my local calculation above, ~$ 3.16 lb.avd; or, at 2012 Silver Rate (POS $32.42) USD$ 10.26 In coin, 190 lbs avd barrel of fine flour sold for $24. in Havana (doubled in price) and as much as $90. (doubled?) in remote Colombia. So other distant places witnessed sudden and brief inflation during this English Wartime/Famine Wheat Price Event of 1801. The "Historic Famine Price" for raw wheat, retail cost in Ag, is ~$10./lb. avd.[/QUOTE]

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