# What crazy expensive items today used to be cheap?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 12, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705 "2008-06-12T16:54:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Nobody\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody_Special)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/1 "2008-06-12T16:54:22Z")
The inverse of [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=471547): Excluding investment-grade items (e.g: Microsoft stock) and item that obtain their value as a result of collectibility (e.g: an original copy of the Declaration of Independence), is there anything that used to be ridiculously cheap but is now prohibitively expensive?
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### Author:  [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/2 "2008-06-12T16:55:38Z")
gas?
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### Author:  [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/3 "2008-06-12T16:56:58Z")
copper pipe/wire.
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### Author:  [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/4 "2008-06-12T16:59:12Z")
Oysters. Back in the time of Charles Dickens they were consumed in vast quantities by even the poorest people. There are supposed to be large quantities of oyster shells buried in old rubbish dumps around London.
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### Author:  [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/5 "2008-06-12T17:04:08Z")
Lobster. Prior to the 20th century, only eaten by the poor in the US.
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/6 "2008-06-12T17:05:43Z")
Lobster used to be peasant food, to the extent that eating it was a mark of poverty.
Now, it’s thirty bucks a pound.
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### Author:  [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/7 "2008-06-12T17:10:08Z")
One year of college. Well, _cheaper_ anyway.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/8 "2008-06-12T17:10:50Z")
Middle-class housing in North America.
Okay, maybe ‘cheap’ is relative. But my father was able to support a mortgage, a car, and a family of five on a single income, that of a dispatcher at the gas company. I have a comparable job and income (allowing for inflation over the passage of time), but at roughly the same age, I’m not even _close_ to being able to afford a similar house, let alone the house, the car, and the family.
Maybe the late fifties and early sixties were an unusually-favourable time for housing affordability that we nevertheless of think of as ‘normal’. My great-grandfather lived in what was basically a walk-up apartment in London. My grandparents lived on farms, before moving to the city.
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### Author:  [@aerodave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aerodave)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/9 "2008-06-12T17:14:33Z")
I came in just to say lobster. Looks like I was beaten to it.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/10 "2008-06-12T17:14:53Z")
Back when Frank Drake drilled his oil well in Titusville, PA, they wanted the “heavier portioons” of the oil for lam,ps and lubrication, taking the place of whale oil. The “Lighter Portions”, I’ve been told, were simply thrown away. They were too volatile, and produced potentially dangerous vapors that could easily explode. These were things like heptane and hexane and octane – modern gasoline.
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### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/11 "2008-06-12T17:15:39Z")
Skirt Steak and chicken wings :(. My mom and grandma used to cook them both cause they were cheap cast-off dog food parts. Now they cost more per pound than the good parts.
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### Author:  [@Mongo\_Ponton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mongo_Ponton)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/12 "2008-06-12T17:21:16Z")
Beach front property in a lot of the country. Farmers didn’t want it because even if you could get something to grow, it was likely to get washed away in a storm.
Outside of a few spots beach front tended to be very rural. Often slave quarters were stuck down by the water.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/13 "2008-06-12T17:23:20Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace]
Okay, maybe ‘cheap’ is relative. But my father was able to support a mortgage, a car, and a family of five on a single income, that of a dispatcher at the gas company. I have a comparable job and income (allowing for inflation over the passage of time), but at roughly the same age, I’m not even _close_ to being able to afford a similar house, let alone the house, the car, and the family.
[/QUOTE]
Family of five, check.
House, check.
Car, check (two, actually.)
Income, one.
It can be done - it’s just that most people don’t want to actually do it. And living like our parents did goes a long way toward making this happen.
I made swiss steak last night in the pressure cooker out of some cube steaks I bought at Aldi. Might not have been T-bones, but they tasted great, and were dirt cheap.
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/14 "2008-06-12T17:29:17Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Back when Frank Drake drilled his oil well in Titusville, PA, they wanted the “heavier portioons” of the oil for lam,ps and lubrication, taking the place of whale oil. The “Lighter Portions”, I’ve been told, were simply thrown away. They were too volatile, and produced potentially dangerous vapors that could easily explode. These were things like heptane and hexane and octane – modern gasoline.
[/QUOTE]
Edwin Drake. Frank Drake is the astronomer who came up with the Drake equation.
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### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/15 "2008-06-12T17:34:21Z")
- Internet domain names that are simple English words.
- Hardwood lumber. Oak used to be cheap, even the old growth stuff - thus, it’s abundance in older homes in the US.
- The services of skilled construction tradespeople. Many believe that the “character” of older homes isn’t duplicated today because builders don’t care. Actually, it’s because the skilled specialty craftspeople are paid middle-income wages today, as opposed to few cents a day they earned at the turn of the last century.
- The services of general contractors. Even 30 years ago, one could call in a building contractor to tear out a wall for a couple hundred bucks. Today, the same work would be in the thousands; much more even considering inflation.
- Post-secondary education, at least in the United States…
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/16 "2008-06-12T17:35:07Z")
Hand tailoring.
It used to be that cloth was expensive, but turning that cloth into custom fitted clothing was pretty cheap. If you could afford a suit, the extra cost of hand tailoring was trivial. In fact, there pretty much was no off the rack clothing. You bought the cloth and made it yourself, or you hired a person to custom make it for you.
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### Author:  [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/17 "2008-06-12T17:41:29Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Back when Frank Drake drilled his oil well in Titusville, PA, they wanted the “heavier portioons” of the oil for lam,ps and lubrication, taking the place of whale oil. The “Lighter Portions”, I’ve been told, were simply thrown away. They were too volatile, and produced potentially dangerous vapors that could easily explode. These were things like heptane and hexane and octane – modern gasoline.
[/QUOTE]
Also, “heavier portions” may misstate it a bit, though the really short hydrocarbon end wasn’t considered useful, as you indicated. The fraction they really wanted out of the oil for lighting purposes was kerosene - a lighter fraction than diesel fuel or lubricating oil.
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/18 "2008-06-12T17:41:46Z")
Never mind.
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/19 "2008-06-12T17:51:50Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
Family of five, check.
House, check.
Car, check (two, actually.)
Income, one.
It can be done - it’s just that most people don’t want to actually do it. And living like our parents did goes a long way toward making this happen.
[/QUOTE]
But is your income average?
Okay, I did a potential mortgage calculation the other month. 25% of my net income translates to payments for a mortgage of around $150,000. The average house price in Toronto, where I live, is a hair under $400,000. [Cite from the Toronto Real Estate Board](http://www.mississauga4sale.com/TREBprice.htm). Heck, the average house price in the town where we lived is $190,000.
It’s not as easy as it once was.
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### Author:  [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2008, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-crazy-expensive-items-today-used-to-be-cheap/452705/20 "2008-06-12T17:57:11Z")
\
Moved to IMHO.
GQ \> IMHO
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