Let us suppose that I have a working time machine, and decide to travel back in time about 100 years. It would seem that the Yearly Median Household Income in that year was $687. I’ve got quite a bit more than that saved up here in 2015, so if I could just transport my frankly not-all-that-impressive savings in this year, back to 1915 - I’d be living the high life!
The problem, as i see it, is that I can’t simply withdraw thousands of dollar from the bank and spend it in the past. For one thing, the currency of today wouldn’t be accepted. I suppose what I really need to do is to figure out the best way to ‘exchange’ my 2015 money into money that would be accepted in 1915. Getting my hands on money that predates 1915 is one option, although, I have a hunch that a dollar that would be valid in 1915 might be worth quite a bit more in this day and age, due to its age and rarity. Is buying old money even an option - or is there a better way?
What if I set my sights on going even further back in time? 1815? 1715?
So, any suggestions before I head back and try and set myself up as an incredibly wealthy individual living in the past?
Gold or silver is expensive now and price controlled cheaper (gold anyway) back then. I’d go with old coins/bills that aren’t collectible due to condition or not being rare. And bring a cheat sheet on events and stocks to make your zillions.
Yeah, gold is ~$1200/oz now and $21/oz back then. Not a great trade.
You’d be better off investing in aluminum. It was relatively expensive then–this link says it reached $0.60/lb for part of the year (due to the war). The spot price today is about $0.78/lb. Not a bad exchange rate.
I was going to say the Gold thing, but Gold is at $1200/ounce today, but it was $19/ounce in 1915. You could always take your gold to 1919 and bet it all on the Reds to win the World Series, since you know that the White Sox were going to fix the series. Other gambling knowledge could bring your revenue up, just don’t lose your sports almanac…
Better to compare using inflation adjusted real dollars to compare buying power of other goods and services. The price of gold in 1915 expressed in 2015 dollars would have been just a touch over $488. A horrible exchange rate.
Aluminum isn’t just a better exchange rate it’s a massive profit source. The price of aluminum in 1915 expressed in 2015 dollars is $13.48. The downside is that you have to take back huge quantities to have any real wealth. A backpack with 72 lbs of aluminum in it would still carry back less wealth than 2 oz of gold.
Get the oldest bills you can find, go back a few years, exchange it for the oldest bills you can find, lather, rinse, repeat until you get to your destination.
Actually, buying old money might not be a bad option – well-worn, circulated old coins aren’t particularly valuable unless they’re a rare date, and there’s no shortage of them.
Silver is far better than Gold in real terms. You might make a small loss or you might even make a small profit. The price tends to fluctuate a bit.
This wouldn’t have worked at all a few years back when the Hunt brothers did their market cornering thing and drove the price of silver over $100/oz.
Its now about $16 and heading south so comparable to 1916 prices of around $15.
Another factor is the exchange rate. Back then the US dollar was worth very little compared to the British pound. It may be better to take back British silver coinage
Sounds like a big hassle. Wouldn’t you have to go in 12-15 year leaps to make that work? And how would you easily find old bills? You’d have to do large denominations ($50s and $100s, maybe a few $20s), and you’re likely to invite the wrong kinds of questions by exchanging large amounts of big bills.
The problem with ANY metals is their weight-to-value ratio. A thousand dollars of paper money is always much lighter than a thousand dollars worth of ANY metal (except maybe rhodium/iridium, which would be hard to find a buyer for back in 1915).
Gems, maybe? A pocketful of small-to-medium diamonds. rubies, emeralds, etc. wouldn’t attract much attention if you sell off a few at a time to different dealers. Then move to a new city and do it again. The big problem would be using or investing all that cash with nothing to show how you got it.
And, as noted above, remember your sports almanac and a list of stocks to buy.
Get a bank statement how much money you have in your account. When you go back use the bank statement to take out money. That is how they do it in China.
How are you going to charge your tablet? 60 Hz was not the standard then, was it? And weren’t the plugs different? A solar charger would work, if you could find one.