Why not books? You can get copies of books from many eras free from the Gutenburg project, further if the printing press hasn’t been invented yet you could use a handwriting font to print them out. It’d be dirt cheap, and if the book was era appropriate, wouldn’t mess with the time line. Further it’d be trivial to make a program to distort the fonts a bit to simulate hand writing irregularities. A modern could catch that, but how could someone who has no idea of a printing press?
The Ancient Egyptians had glue.
The OP didn’t state when and where he was going. I was imagining what he might bring if he happened to land in a hunter-gatherer group.
Quoth Bosda:
“Quite cheap” is an understatement: I once bought a chunk of amethyst the size of my fist for five bucks. I figure that regardless of how rare or common it is, it was pretty enough to be worth it. I hadn’t realized that it was ever anything more than just decorative.
Are pigs valuable in countries that are primarily Muslim?
I should think that counterfeit money would be easy to pass in the nineteenth century and before.
Good point. A horse, then.
Pencils. They are useful, easily transportable items that are low tech and reasonably unremarkable. The relative cost of a modern mass produced pencil is going to be far cheaper then an old bespoke pencil. Hopefully they will all be consumed in use to avoid any time pollution.
Anywhere outside China, before 550 AD, you might make a lot of money with a handful of silk worms.
More recently, some now common fossils might be extremely valuable.
Further in this direction of thinking, something natural, so as not to introduce even the idea of an unknown technology, but difficult to come by in the locality & era where you’ll be traveling. Maybe a refined natural dyestuff like indigo or cochineal? Some handmade cashmere scarves? Also study up on your practical chemistry, and you can be like Kirk vs. the Gorn.
Well, for certain values of “always” and certain values of “everywhere.”
Try taking a gold nugget to the native peoples of the New Guinea highlands in the late nineteenth century and see how much good it does you. Also, historical evidence suggests that some California Indian tribes were aware of the shiny metal in the alluvial sands of their creeks and rivers well before the California gold rush, but never had any use for it.
Forget about arguing with Susanann on this topic. She’s unshakably convinced that gold both never changes in value and is perpetually increasing in value.
Forget about listening to people who have little or no GOLD, because they dont know the value of Gold.
If you are stupid enough to show up somewhere/sometime with just a handful of pencils, glue, pigs, matches, counterfeit money, tulips, salt, sugar, etc. , instead of… a big bag full of pure GOLD, then you deserve!!! to be destitute and starving.
Nothing is better than Gold.
Would you mind linking to whatever it is that you are parodying here?
I suspect that before the 20th century a bolt of high quality nylon fabric would be worth more that it’s weight in gold. Even after silkworms were introduced in the west, high quality silk fabrics commanded high prices.
I’m flashing on the old guy from Treasure of the Sierra Madre dancing around, with a little bit of Scrooge McDuck and the prospector from that Rankin & Bass Christmas special.
It’s been more than 24 hours. It’d be nice if the OP came back and specified where/when he’s going.
If it’s in the last 100 years in the USA the problem is easily taken care of. Go to an antique coin dealer and buy about $2 worth of currency for the time you’re going back to. Then, before you go, look up results for a horse track. After a few days you can win hundreds of thousands of dollars. Problem solved.
If you’re going way, wayyy back, simply take a 21st century semi-auto rifle and pistol and ammo. Who needs money?
(best to get a rifle/pistol that takes the same ammo/mags, like a Kel-Tec sub2000 and a Glock).
Some helpful ideas here as my itinerary hasn’t been finalized. But for now, let’s assume my first three locations are:
- Egypt around 50 BC. Like to chat up Cleopatra and peak at the library at Alexandria.
- American midwest around 1200 AD to see what those Cahokia kids were all about.
- Prague in 1787 to down some beverages with - and check out the latest Opera by - Mozart.
I do intend to take firearms and ammo, bit I would hope to only use these for self defense and a bit of food – no crimes.
Remember all those Confederate banknotes Great-Grandpappy saved in the attic? How everybody laughed at him for holding onto obsolete currency? Well now he gets the last laugh!
And if you could also pick up Short Line, Reading Railroad, and Pennsylvania Railroad…