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The value of pre-modern currencies.

Started by jimmy olsen, March 04, 2012, 10:08:17 PM

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Camerus

Surely it makes the most sense to compare vs. other people's incomes living at the same time and same society.  That way, you'll always be comparing apples to apples.

In regards to the layman's need to convert it.... It's usually pretty easy to get a rough sense of what the person's income means for them by the standards of their society, and that is good enough for laymen.  Thus Mr. Darcy has his own estate, and his yearly income makes Elizabeth Bennett all wet when she finds out, so it's pretty safe to conclude it's a rather significant sum.

Ideologue

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The Brain

200,000 dollars was a lot of money. Apparently they were gonna have to earn it.
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garbon

Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on November 09, 2013, 08:13:06 AM
In regards to the layman's need to convert it.... It's usually pretty easy to get a rough sense of what the person's income means for them by the standards of their society, and that is good enough for laymen.  Thus Mr. Darcy has his own estate, and his yearly income makes Elizabeth Bennett all wet when she finds out, so it's pretty safe to conclude it's a rather significant sum.

Yeah which is why we don't actually need to convert it. You can take enough cues from how the characters react to the sums.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
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garbon

Quote from: Ideologue on November 09, 2013, 08:03:03 AM
Quote from: garbon on March 05, 2012, 02:16:04 PMTo be honest, I don't really know. I usually just gloss over any mention of currency in works

No, we know this. :P

I'm missing the joke. :(
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Ideologue

Mild swipe at your anti-minwage agitprop.
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jimmy olsen

#51
Quote from: garbon on November 09, 2013, 10:10:15 AM
Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on November 09, 2013, 08:13:06 AM
In regards to the layman's need to convert it.... It's usually pretty easy to get a rough sense of what the person's income means for them by the standards of their society, and that is good enough for laymen.  Thus Mr. Darcy has his own estate, and his yearly income makes Elizabeth Bennett all wet when she finds out, so it's pretty safe to conclude it's a rather significant sum.

Yeah which is why we don't actually need to convert it. You can take enough cues from how the characters react to the sums.
I need to know exactly how much Pemberly estate would fetch on the open market in Deutschmarks circa 1987!  :mad:
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garbon

"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Queequeg

I've always found them suspect.  Coinage was going to have a different meaning in Venice than in rural Bosnia in the 17th Century, and the 18th Century Dutch and Chinese had different problems of scarcity. 
Quote from: PDH on April 25, 2009, 05:58:55 PM
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MadImmortalMan

Quote from: Syt on March 06, 2012, 01:53:15 AM
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.

Approximately $73.59 and $44.15 in 2013 dollars.


Baseball got more expensive.
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"We have nothing to fear but lack of fear itself." --Larry Summers

Razgovory

Quote from: Queequeg on November 09, 2013, 02:53:21 PM
I've always found them suspect.  Coinage was going to have a different meaning in Venice than in rural Bosnia in the 17th Century, and the 18th Century Dutch and Chinese had different problems of scarcity.

Translating modern monies to monies from 150 years ago has enough pitfalls.  Trying to figure out pre-modern currency is a fool's errand.  It's like trying to figure out how many viking swords are equivalent to an ICBM.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Tonitrus

Quote from: Razgovory on November 09, 2013, 03:24:27 PM
It's like trying to figure out how many viking swords are equivalent to an ICBM.

An ICBM can only be used once.  Swing one sword enough times, and you can kill more people  :smarty:

grumbler

One can translate pre-modern currencies into modern equivalents.  There are pitfalls, of course, but it can be done meaningfully.  While many commonly-accepted modern uses for money would be meaningless in, say, 1820 (medical care or home climate control, for instance), many others would not (the cost of a day of skilled labor, or six ounces of good whiskey, or x amount of wine).  The chief problem is in the interpretation, not the translation.

Ultimately, though, I think garbon is right:  it is better to rely on the reactions of contemporaries than to go through then bother of a translation that you might then misinterpret.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

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Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 09, 2013, 03:20:33 PM
Approximately $73.59 and $44.15 in 2013 dollars.


Baseball got more expensive.

Outfield seats now cost more than $44?  When did this happen?  :huh:

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