Purchasing Power of old Coins back in "the Day"??

Sorry, guys! My tunnel vision got the best of me. I was trying to make one point (which I didn't do a very good job of making) and forgot about the rest. The only thing I was trying to point out was that what $1000 would buy in 2009 only took $36.50 to buy in 1774. Duh!

Chris

 

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Better have some GOOD batteries to last over 140 years. And what would 140 years of seawater do to the electronics?

 

Who said anything about waiting 140 years? If I could have mastered time travel, then I would have been able to locate the wreck and bring the treasure back with me.

Hmmmm, maybe the diamond and gold mines in South Africa would be a better choice. No need for a GPS locator.

Chris

 

this is pretty cool.according to the site my adding machine cost $5890.00 brand new

 

In some large cities you could lay down as many of those Double Eagles as you want and no hand gun. In some areas you must wait several days for a check on you and then register the gun, yourself and still maybe nothing.

 

Actually I suspect the answer is a lot more complicated than people think. In the recent past prices were fairly set by companies, organizations, laws, etc. As you go farther into the past, many, many things effected the sale of items everywhere. For example in some areas in the past money was seldom used since the barter systems was more commone. Also, and not to long ago, trading was also common with pelts, skins, trading of all types of items was even as common as necessary. Even when I was a kid my grandparents did almost all of their purchases by trading or bartering. I'm sure the usage of coins in the 1700's and even well into the 1800's were not the most used system in most of the Western areas of our country and even in most farm lands.
By this I mean the purchasing power of a $10 coin was what ever the area and situation demanded. You could say a loaf of bread was a Nickel but if you just traded for a slab of bacon, really difficult to say what anything really costs.

 

Yep! I agree with you on all counts. I think that some of the taxing authorities would even accept hogs or cows as payment for taxes owed.

Chris

 

Tenant Framers?


Ruben

 

OK, but your going to have to figure out how to take back to the 1850's not just the GPS units but a whole network of orbiting satellites, and the needed salvage equipment to recover the treasure 3 miles down in the ocean. (support ships, submersibles etc.) You're going to need a BIG time machine. (Are you going to transport the satellites back in time from where they are currently in orbit? Or are you going to transport back satellites and then launch them in the 1850's? If the latter you'll probably have to take that technology back with you too.)