What could your favorite coin buy the year it was struck?

That's for sure. On the other hand, the US median family income in 1965 was $6,900. Today's figure is about 9 times that, and until this latest spike, gas prices were about on par.

But don't think of pricing your gas at $2.70/gal, because all the drivers will go across the street where it's still $2.699...

 

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My mother said she remembers when the price for gas went over a dollar. She also remembers thinking that it was getting expensive. I have faint memories of gas being over four dollars.

 

When I started driving, not THAT long ago...gas was just under a dollar.

 

Back in my days as a commercial pump jockey regular gas was 17 cents a gallon--15 during a price war with the station across the street. For that 17 cents I pumped it for you, washed your windows, and checked your oil and tire pressure.

 

...and earned how much per hour?

 

I'm one of Those People that records price/amount/mileage whenever I put gas in the car. I know the log for my last car has at least one period where gas was below a dollar a gallon -- and I bought that car in 1999. So, no, not that long ago.

 

60 cents an hour for up to 20 hours...actual minimum wage at the time was 1.00 but as I was a full-time student the employer was allowed to pay me less.

 

Here is a coin as useless as the penny....

It's been estimated that an ancient drachm was worth around $50 today (though keep in mind $50 gets you a lot further in a world where you don't have to pay for cell phone bill, electricity, running water, gas, car payments, internet, etc..--so the comparison can be deceiptive). In ancient times that would probably get you through a day and a half to two days in a big city, and maybe as much as 4 days if you lived in a small village.


A typical drachm


To continue, if you broke a drachm into 6 parts you'd get an obol. Seems small, but hey, an obol still has value. You could probably get a decent glass of lead-sweetened wine at that questionable establishment down the block that keeps advertising they run the cleanest brothel in town. I would not recommend you try to find out if that advertisement is true though. Keep in mind this is a world without antibiotics.


A typical obol

Anyway, you keep going down the list of silver coin denominations, until they get so tiny you can barely even see them (coins so small a US dime looks huge next to them). But that's not worthless enough, so you then start to go down a list of bronze coin denominations that get progressively smaller, until you get to an onkia, a bronze coin so tiny it makes a U.S. penny look impressively large.

It's worth only 10% of an obol, or basically a modern equivalent to 80-something cents, and its as low value as it gets in the pre-Roman Greek world. So what would that buy you in ancient times? Hardly anything at all, as this is a world where people sell you wheat in bulk, and simple hand-finished goods are expensive as everything is hand-made and labor intensive. So like the penny you get stuck with these as pocket change for basic transactions, not being able to do much with them. Not even a cup of the worst low class unsweetened wine that tastes like half-vinegar at that questionable establishment.

A typical onkia

But hey, like pennies, eventually you might store enough of these in your cupboard that you may be able to actually buy something useful with them. Who knows, it can become a convenient way to slowly save some cash. Maybe after you've saved enough of these you'll finally be able to see the priestess at the temple so she can say some prayers to heal that unsightly growth in your personal area (I told you to stay away from that questionable establishment).

 

I love this post. Highly educational.... And enormously entertaining. Thank you.

 

This is a denarius of the Roman emperor Augustus (27 BC- 14 AD). Exact prices are hard to find for ancient times, but here's what I've been able to find for the 1st century AD (most of these prices are for Jerusalem under Roman rule, and are from David Hendin's "Guide to Biblical Coins"):

-One denarius was the baseline daily pay for a Roman soldier. Rabbi Hillel received just half a denarius per day.
-A denarius could buy 12 loaves of bread, or one amphora of olive oil from Galilee, or one cucumber (which raises the question of why cucumbers were so expensive)
-A full-grown ox was 100 denarii, while a calf cost 20 denarii. A lamb was 4 denarii. Five sparrows cost just 1/8 denarius, but it doesn't say what the sparrows were for. Pets? Food? Sacrificial offering?
-A cluster of grapes or 10 dates cost just 1/24 denarius. No wonder everyone in paintings of ancient times is feasting on grapes- they couldn't afford cucumbers.

 

I noticed this coin yesterday whilst cropping some coin pix, and I liked its looks, almost a "circ cam". Back in 1956, when I was a little brat, it could have bought me a small bottle of Coca-Cola, in a returnable bottle of course. Some time later the price went up to 6 cents, and I thought that was really dumb and would make it more inconvenient for everyone, having to make change with pennies. (Cents, I know...). I did not think of doing the math and realizing it was a 20% price hike. Heck, I probably didn't understand that much math then anyhow.

 

Here in Calif. they would do all of the above and also give you Blue Chip or S&H trading stamps. They would also have promotions like giving you a steak knife with a fill up or maybe glassware, etc.

 

1839. GB Gold 5 Pounds of Queen Victoria and Una and the Lion. Mr. Wyon was a genius. The other is 1847, the Gothic Crown.

 

This newp is my current favorite coin, though we'll see how long it can hold off my capped halves.

In 1917, this would have bought a pound of coffee or a pound of bacon.

 

Gahhhh..... I just fell in love with your Type 1.

 

A stamp...

In a world where most lived on farms far from the city, you didn't have store-bought postage stamps.

Instead you left your letter with some coins on top for the postman to pick up and apply a stamp.

When they lowered the postage rate - yes, this has happened at least once in US history - the half dime wouldn't do and the postman would have needed heavy bags of large cents for change.

So in 1851 the 3 cent silver, the trime, or fishscale, was born. At 14 mm it's the smallest silver coin the u.s. ever minted.

 

@Sallent That wasan excellent response. I love the parallels you showed and the excellent history lesson. Even the humor (historically accurate humor at that) was well placed.

@Parthicus I will certainly not complain about the price of cucumbers again.

@coin_nut At almost 30, I still don't understand math all that well, LOL. I agree that nickel is appealing.

@Lunchbox John That is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!! And, while I get the feeling it will cost me, you may have just given me my first coin to hunt for!. BTW, Now I want more coffee, LOL

@Burton Strauss III Out here in the country we still just leave change in the mailbox. Cool little history lesson.

 

Agreed. I feel lucky to have come across it (and thanks again for the approval stamp before I pulled the trigger. Your take is always appreciated.)

Haha, that's what happened to me too. A "love at first sight" kind of coin for sure. It's really cool to see that other people get it as well.

 

Interesting that the 3 cent silver was minted because of postal needs. Tiny coin must weight less than 2 grams