Yesterday's gun and ammo prices in today's dollars

[Jim K]

A couple of years ago, I did some research comparing prices for the 1880-1910 era (when prices in gold dollars were relatively stable) with current dollars. My conclusions (not always in agreement with an official figure) was a 1 to 40 ratio in dollars. An English pound, equivalent to $4.80 in that era, was equivalent to about $200 today. In places where the currencies were in use together, as on transatlantic liners, one pound was equal to five dollars, and the gold sovereign (one pound coin) was close to the same size as the five dollar gold piece.*

So a Colt SAA that sold for $16 in 1890 would sell for $640 today, reason enough why every man west of the Mississippi didn't carry one on his hip, Hollywood notwithstanding. Even those $2-$4 Suicide Specials cost $80-160 in todays dollars.

As for wages, a common laborer got the equivalent of $40 a day, a cowboy $20, a private soldier $20, a skilled workman $80, a skilled and experienced factory worker $120-160. In 1914, Ford made history by paying his workers $5 per day ($200 equivalent).

*English writers of historical fiction especially seem ignorant of money in their chosen eras. In recent "historical" novels, one writer had his character "toss a sovereign" to a shoe shine boy, another had "a wallet stuffed with twenty pound notes", and a third paid ten pounds for a restaurant meal. Some restaurant!

Jim

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