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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;beef1020, post: 1675025, member: 24544&quot;]The amount of copper in a penny was actually a little less than a cent&#039;s worth, that was the senoriage the mint got to keep.&nbsp; As to Doug&#039;s point about metal prices changing, you can see this in the weight of the early cent drop as the real price of copper rose.&nbsp; So 1793/94 are 208 grains, lowered to 168 grains in 1795.</p><p><br /></p><p>How much a penny would buy is tough because as other have pointed out every day items were more expensive in real terms than they are today and doing an inflation calculator does not take this into account.&nbsp; Just for comparison, the early mint workers, the laborers back in the late 1790&#039;s made around $1 a day. </p><p><br /></p><p>I have also read a couple accounts indicating that large cents, and to a much larger degree half cents, did not really circulate, and never circulated outside of the northeast.&nbsp; As a quick example, the largest half cent mintage is 1804 with 1.5 million minted (with most other years around 300,000) for a total population of 5.5 million people.&nbsp; A quick look at 2010 cent mintage runs at 5 billion coins for 315 million people.&nbsp; So in the best year of half cent mintage they had .3 half cent per person (more normal year would be .05 half cents minted per person) while in 2010 we have 15 cents per year per person minted.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mint reports also indicate that the silver and gold coinage only circulated in an area close to the mint.&nbsp; At this time, foreign coinage made up the majority of small change.</p><p><br /></p><p>In terms of what things cost back in the 1790, this is the mint directors expense book, you can see what he bought and how much it cost.&nbsp; Love this &#039;June 13, 1793 - <font size="2">Warrant in favor of Henry Voigt, 30 gals. spirits bought of John Wilson $30.00</font>&#039;.&nbsp; This is a better way to view the real cost of things back then, one day of labor, at $1 a day, would buy 1 gallon of spirits.&nbsp; One day of labor today actually buys around the same amount, 8 hours at $8 per hour is $64, with two 1.75 litter bottles being about a gallon, although the working conditions will be much better.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm</a></p><p><a href="http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm" rel="nofollow"><br /></a></p><p><a href="http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm" rel="nofollow"><br /></a></p><p><a href="http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.coinfacts.com/mint_history/mint_history_1793/mint_records_1793.htm" rel="nofollow"></a>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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