When I was a kid...

[kengr]

1956 cost of lining
 
new house $11,725.00
average income $4,454.00 per year
new car $2,050.00
average rent $88.00 per month
tuition to Harvard $800.00 per year
movie ticket $0.75 each
gasoline $0.22 gallon
US postage stamp $0.03 each
10 pounds granualted sugar $0.85
gallon milk $0.97
pound ground coffee $0.85
pound bacon $0.58
dozen eggs $0.27
pound hamburger $0.56
loaf bread $0.18

Comments

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

I wish I could go back in time to do my grocery shopping!

[kengr]

and where are you going to get 1956 *money*?

I've had fantasies about being able to time travel and using it to make money. But you need "period" money, which is *really* expensive to get.

Or you need to do something like buy gold and drop back to when it was legal to own it (it wasn't from around 1935 until the 1970s or 80s). Coins and jewelry were legal, but harder to sell.

And, of course, back then the gold was only worth $35/ounce (instead of $1000 or so now).

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Well it would take some time, but I could collect some bills and coins from that time or before.

Go back in time to the gold rush, maybe?

I also suppose that, with modern technology, it could be very easy to counterfeit period money and get away with it, depending on the period.

[kengr]

As recently as the late 1800s, paper money wasn't terribly trusted. Especially since a lot of it was issued by banks. If the bank folded, the money they issued was worthless. And if it wasn't local... US Government "greenbacks" were often worthless due to the government printing lots of them to try to cover war debts and the like.

That's where he expression "cold, hard cash" comes from. Paying with silver and gold *coins* rather than paper money.

Finding old paper money from the times when it's useful isn't easy as the bills wear out fairly fast and even the ones that don't often get removed from circulation because of changes (for example the pre-1935(?) notes with "redeemable in gold" got yanked when it was made illegal to own gold. Silver certificates disappeared when we quit backing the money with silver).

And the ones that remain are generally collectors items unless you get lucky.

It's doable, but expensive.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

I found a silver-backed dollar bill once, while working as a cashier at Terrible's. It being unusual and all, I was very sad to have to let it go. But now it seems those are even rarer than I thought. Damn, I should have replaced that one with one of my own dollars. :-(

Mind if I come over tomorrow?

[kengr]

I found a silver-backed dollar bill once, while working as a cashier at Terrible's. It being unusual and all, I was very sad to have to let it go. But now it seems those are even rarer than I thought. Damn, I should have replaced that one with one of my own dollars. :-(

Somewhere I have on of those from just after they got rid of the gold backed notes. The person ahead of me in line gave it to the cashier and she was commenting on how weird it looked. It was a $5. I swapped her for one in my wallet.

Mind if I come over tomorrow?

As long as you don't mind me doing a bit of work part of the time.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

What work you doing?