Dismuke
One of the Regulars
- Messages
- 146
- Location
- Fort Worth, Texas
Ever wonder what the prices in vintage advertisements and catalogs work out to in today's money after currency inflation has been factored in? Here is a very useful tool which will show you just that.
http://www.aier.org/cgi-aier/colcalculator.cgi
Simply enter in a dollar, select any year going back to 1913 and it will calculate how approximately how many dollars in 2005 currency it would take to have a similar purchasing power. For example, that 5 cents someone would have spent on a six ounce soda pop back in 1933 is about the same as 74 cents in today's currency. Not such a great bargain. The cost of soda pop has actually gone down quite a bit.
My 1933 Sears Roebuck Catalog offers Brunswick Records - a premium record label with top stars - for 75 cents each. That is the equivalent of $11.04 in today's currency - that for a 78 rpm record with about 3 minutes worth of playing time on each side. However you could buy Conqueror Records - Sears Roebuck's in-house bargain label manufactured by the same company that issued Brunswick Records for 19 cents each when purchased in quantities of 10 - or about $2.80 in today's currency. The purchase enough Brunswick Records in 1933 to have the equivelent amount of music as is on today's CDs, one would have had to spend $9 or about $132 in today's currency. The price for the same amount of music on Conqueror Records would have cost $2.28 or $33.55 in today's currency Keep that in mind next time you hear some teenager complain about how CDs are too expensive.
If you lived out in a rural area - as many Sears Roebuck customers did - and rural electrification had not reached your area yet, you would have had to listen to the radio on a battery powered "farm radio." The batteries did not look like those found in portable radios of today. The looked more like car batteries.
Sears offered a "One Year Size" Slivertone radio battery which was designed to give one year's worth of service when used on an average of 2 to 3 hours daily. The battery measured 13 1/4 " x 8" x 10 1/2" and had a shipping weight of 60 lbs. The cost - $7.77 or about $114 in today's currency.
If that was more than your Depression era budget would let you spend at one time, you could have purchased their less expensive "Six Month Size Meteor" battery which smaller (10 3/8 " x 8 1/4" x 6 3/4 " with a shipping weight of 30 lbs) and was designed to give 6 months worth of service when used on an average of 2 to 3 hours daily. It only cost $4.25 - or about $62.54 in today's currency.
Listening to the radio was not cheap if you lived way out in the country. Needless to say, rural families during the Depression did not keep the radio turned on all day for background noise. In fact, many people listened to their radios using headphones because they were less of a drain on the batteries than were the speakers.
Depression era prices look like a bargain to us today - but when you run them through the Cost of Living Calculator, more often than not, you will find that the price of most things today is much lower. And when they are not lower - for example automobiles - there is often a vast difference in the features one gets for one's money, such as safety improvements, air conditioning, etc.
http://www.aier.org/cgi-aier/colcalculator.cgi
Simply enter in a dollar, select any year going back to 1913 and it will calculate how approximately how many dollars in 2005 currency it would take to have a similar purchasing power. For example, that 5 cents someone would have spent on a six ounce soda pop back in 1933 is about the same as 74 cents in today's currency. Not such a great bargain. The cost of soda pop has actually gone down quite a bit.
My 1933 Sears Roebuck Catalog offers Brunswick Records - a premium record label with top stars - for 75 cents each. That is the equivalent of $11.04 in today's currency - that for a 78 rpm record with about 3 minutes worth of playing time on each side. However you could buy Conqueror Records - Sears Roebuck's in-house bargain label manufactured by the same company that issued Brunswick Records for 19 cents each when purchased in quantities of 10 - or about $2.80 in today's currency. The purchase enough Brunswick Records in 1933 to have the equivelent amount of music as is on today's CDs, one would have had to spend $9 or about $132 in today's currency. The price for the same amount of music on Conqueror Records would have cost $2.28 or $33.55 in today's currency Keep that in mind next time you hear some teenager complain about how CDs are too expensive.
If you lived out in a rural area - as many Sears Roebuck customers did - and rural electrification had not reached your area yet, you would have had to listen to the radio on a battery powered "farm radio." The batteries did not look like those found in portable radios of today. The looked more like car batteries.
Sears offered a "One Year Size" Slivertone radio battery which was designed to give one year's worth of service when used on an average of 2 to 3 hours daily. The battery measured 13 1/4 " x 8" x 10 1/2" and had a shipping weight of 60 lbs. The cost - $7.77 or about $114 in today's currency.
If that was more than your Depression era budget would let you spend at one time, you could have purchased their less expensive "Six Month Size Meteor" battery which smaller (10 3/8 " x 8 1/4" x 6 3/4 " with a shipping weight of 30 lbs) and was designed to give 6 months worth of service when used on an average of 2 to 3 hours daily. It only cost $4.25 - or about $62.54 in today's currency.
Listening to the radio was not cheap if you lived way out in the country. Needless to say, rural families during the Depression did not keep the radio turned on all day for background noise. In fact, many people listened to their radios using headphones because they were less of a drain on the batteries than were the speakers.
Depression era prices look like a bargain to us today - but when you run them through the Cost of Living Calculator, more often than not, you will find that the price of most things today is much lower. And when they are not lower - for example automobiles - there is often a vast difference in the features one gets for one's money, such as safety improvements, air conditioning, etc.