The value of pre-modern currencies.

[Tonitrus]

I buy a long sword for 5gp, and those fancy pantaloons for 2 sp.

The guy selling pantaloons hates it when I make him try to give change for a platinum piece. 

[Ed Anger]

I buy a long sword for 5gp, and those fancy pantaloons for 2 sp.

The guy selling pantaloons hates it when I make him try to give change for a platinum piece. 

The wagon driver has only change for 1gp.

[Josquius]

Its impossible to do.
Just as looking at history in terms of nation states is a broken and faulty way of looking at things so too is trying to apply modern economics to the past.

[Habbaku]

How many bushels of wheat can the average modern salary buy?

2 koku worth.

[The Brain]

What is the problem (non-rhetorical)?

The difficulty in a layman trying to find out how much a premodern currency is worth in today's currency of choice.

Why would a layman have any need to do such a thing?

Because folks like us just want to know. I suppose we would fall under educated laymen. Whenever I'm reading a book set around in mid 19th century America and a price is listed I multiply the $ amount by 25 to get a feel for what it costs.

But the thing is you won't know anything that's very meaningful. Tip: forget direct comparisons to the present day and get a feel for the era itself.

[HVC]

Is the price he paysimportant to the story   is this a 19th century consumer fraud tale?

[The Brain]

He has to sell the bottle cheaper than he bought it.

[Richard Hakluyt]

My main concern is "what amount of money per year equates to an equivalent social class".

As in, I earn X per year as a lawyer, making me upper-middle class, living in a major city. How much would I need to earn in 1820 in (say) England to have roughly the same social position?

£400 - £1,000 per year would be about right. There are references in literature to indigent curates struggling to feed large families on £120 a year. Meanwhile some of the unmarried characters in Jane Austen's works have incomes of a few hundred a year which make them financially independent. Agricultural labourers got between 10 shillings and 20 shillings a week (20 shillings = £1).

One confusing factor is that prices were high during the Napoleonic wars but then generally fell as the 19th century progressed.

[Syt]

But the thing is you won't know anything that's very meaningful. Tip: forget direct comparisons to the present day and get a feel for the era itself.

Indeed. Wealth/Values is always relative to the economic environment of the time.

[Syt]

My desk calendar has program/tickets of the World Series 1925 depicted today. Ticket prices: Lower Grandstand $5.50, Center Field Pavillion $3.30.

I have a feeling that it was pretty big money at the time.

[Richard Hakluyt]

But the thing is you won't know anything that's very meaningful. Tip: forget direct comparisons to the present day and get a feel for the era itself.

Indeed. Wealth/Values is always relative to the economic environment of the time.

Yes. The zone of upper middle-class incomes I mentioned is the area where people would think of setting up a carriage. This would be crippling at £400pa and relatively ok at £1000pa. Contrast this to modern times where we can "set up our carriage" for a pittance.

[Admiral Yi]

My desk calendar has program/tickets of the World Series 1925 depicted today. Ticket prices: Lower Grandstand $5.50, Center Field Pavillion $3.30.

I have a feeling that it was pretty big money at the time.

Those prices do indeed seem very high for the times.

[Warspite]

How many bushels of wheat can the average modern salary buy?

Quite a lot because what is being purchased is the product of an industrialized process using genetically optimized material and transported using modern means.  Also quite a lot because on the demand side, wheat competes with maize, potatoes, rice etc. as substitutes and that keeps the price down.  A direct comparison to pre-modern Europe could be very misleading.

Hmm. Should the government do anything about this grain inflation?

[jimmy olsen]

Found a good website for this. It converts pounds sterling from every decade from  1270 to 1970 into the equivalent amount in 2005. However, that being a quite inaccurate indication of purchasing power, it also has tool to calculate that.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/currency/

Since Fitzwilliam Darcy was mentioned early, I'll use him as an example.

£10,000 pounds in 1810 was equal to only £339,600 in 2005, however it's purchasing power was immense, equivalent to
     

66,666 x the daily wage of a craftsman in building trade

or 11,111 stones of wool
        
or 1,757 quarters of Wheat

or 2,000 cows   

or 952 horses    

[Ideologue]

To be honest, I don't really know. I usually just gloss over any mention of currency in works

No, we know this.

Anyway, I'd go as far as to say "practically nothing."  With arms that could be purchased for less than a million dollars, the GDP of the Roman Empire could be at our disposal.  That's the true exchange rate, and the one they favored themselves.