Purchasing power

[Dan769]

Anybody know what a half cent or cent would buy someone in 1800?

 

Just curious holding my new half cent, what someone bought with it 207 years ago.

[Mark Stilson]

Just a wild shot, about a loaf of bread. Or equal in wheat.

 

Edit:

Just found this page with goods prices. Loaves of bread sold for 8 cents.

[Dockwalliper]

A lemon drop.

Maybe two.

[Scottishmoney]

There wasn't as much to buy, even for a cent, back then. I have read in the past that money from the 19th century had about 40x the purchasing power that the same denomination does today. But even what you could buy for 40¢ now would not likely have existed then.

[just carl]

I think mostly they were used in vending macines for coffee, cokes and other types of pop. No Startbucks then so coffee hadn't hit $5 a cup yet. Even in 1800 if there was a Starbucks, coffee would be way, way more than a cent. Then of course they could be used for public transportation on commuter trains. Not sure it the pay telephones would accept a half cent and I'm sure AT&T has always been higher than a cent even back then in about 1800. Also, many were used in those laundromats for washing machines. Each load was a cent. Dryers took two cents.

I was a little to young back then to remember all the things we did with those half cents. I wonder if the price of gasoline for cars was less than $4/gallon.

[ccg]

One important thing to remember about purchasing power is that today we live in a much more industrialized world where things cost less relatively speaking...

 

To use bread as an example, today's loaf of bread is usually produced in a big factory that produces thousands of loaves hourly, whereas in the old days it'd be a local bakery making a small amount for a local market, and needing to pay for perhaps 2-3 employees.

[jlueke]

One important thing to remember about purchasing power is that today we live in a much more industrialized world where things cost less relatively speaking...

 

To use bread as an example, today's loaf of bread is usually produced in a big factory that produces thousands of loaves hourly, whereas in the old days it'd be a local bakery making a small amount for a local market, and needing to pay for perhaps 2-3 employees.

But the factory bread is no longer bread. Real bread is called artisan bread and seems to run $3-$4 per loaf. Hence I bake my own.

[jlueke]

There wasn't as much to buy, even for a cent, back then. I have read in the past that money from the 19th century had about 40x the purchasing power that the same denomination does today. But even what you could buy for 40¢ now would not likely have existed then.

But there's a few things you could have bought back then that you can't get now.

[jlueke]

Anybody know what a half cent or cent would buy someone in 1800?

 

Just curious holding my new half cent, what someone bought with it 207 years ago.

 

A pound of beef or pork was about 9 cents,

A dozen eggs around twenty cents (had to eat em quick back then)

A pound of coffee 45 cents and a pound of tea over $2.

 

So you might get an egg for a cent, or a cup of coffee.

[rittenhouse]

I think mostly they were used in vending macines for coffee, cokes and other types of pop. No Startbucks then so coffee hadn't hit $5 a cup yet. Even in 1800 if there was a Starbucks, coffee would be way, way more than a cent. Then of course they could be used for public transportation on commuter trains. Not sure it the pay telephones would accept a half cent and I'm sure AT&T has always been higher than a cent even back then in about 1800. Also, many were used in those laundromats for washing machines. Each load was a cent. Dryers took two cents.

I was a little to young back then to remember all the things we did with those half cents. I wonder if the price of gasoline for cars was less than $4/gallon.

 

Now that's funny!!!

 

The historical record shows that the reason for the half cent was based in the money and pricing of the time. Pre and post-revolution, the coinage consisted of a mishmash of worn foreign coin along with some state issues of dubious value with the most common being Spanish. Since there was a dearth of small coinage, folks took to cutting the Spanish dollars into "bits" or eighths, with one bit being 12 1/2 cents. Prices of 1, 3 and 5 bits were common. It was thought that merchants would thus be forced to round up to the detriment of the customer if there wasn't a half cent denomination. However, in practice this simply wasn't true. Purchasing was frequently done on account and you simply settled at the end of the week or month. Alternately you bought 2 sacks of flour for 2 bits rather than one for one bit.

 

The half cent was thus a pretty useless denomination and not widely accepted. The Mint record in the National Archive show that many ended up at post offices and customs houses for the payment of import duties, and they weren't even popular there. Some time ago I published a rather funny letter I found in which a Postal Official rather angrily returned two kegs (200) of half cents delivered by the Mint in place of cents and requested that they never send them again!

 

For an in-depth on early US monetary policy and problems try Fractional Money by Neil Carothers. Arising from his 1929 doctoral thesis, Fractional Money is still considered the best historical treament of this subject.

[jlueke]

Here's an interesting link on prices Historical Prices