In prices adjusted to 2005 dollars how much would a good pistol or rifle have cost a hunter or cowboy in the 1800’s. How about a horse? a buckboard wagon?
A good pistol was about a months salary for a cowboy. There is an interesting fact- you could buy a decent revolver for a $20 gold piece back then. Now, that same $20 gold piece will still buy you a decent revolver. Note that a cowboy earned about $1 a day- but they had food and lodging thrown in.
One small side note- the “double eagle” was very very rare as an item of day-to-day currency. It would be something a bit like carrying around a $1000 bill today- but much heavier. The $20 gp was mainly for bank transfers & such- it is very nearly the size of the old Silver dollar but about twice as heavy. The $5gp was the common gold coin- it’s about the size of a nickel.
$20 gold pieces were actually used quite a bit in day to day transactions. The ones dated from 1850-the late 1880’s show especially hard use from circulation. They were more commonly used out West, and people in the East used paper currency more. It’s just that the average person didn’t have enough money to use one all the time.
Unfortunately I can’t remember the actual figures, but ammunition was also very expensive in the Wild West. I saw an episode of the PBS documentary The West (see here) that covered cowboys and the hunting and near-extinction of the buffalo, and at one point they compared the cost of bullets to the market value of a dead buffalo. Cartridges were astonishingly expensive – they cost many times more than they would even in 2005 dollars. For this reason, it’s surprising that hunters chose rifles that fired cartridges, rather than older muzzle-loaders that fired balls of lead shot. Ammunition for older weapons would have been far less expensive and could be made easily, but the advantages of newer weapons must have justified the cost. Because of the cost of ammunition, buffalo hunters tried to conserve cartridges as much as possible (the PBS site mentions a buffalo hunter saying he ‘took 269 hides with 300 cartridges’). Cowboys, even if they only had six-shooters, would have tried to conserve bullets too – certainly they wouldn’t shoot into the air or something like that, except perhaps to express that he had so much money he could afford to waste bullets.
Got a ten dollar horse
And a forty dollar saddle,
Going to Montana
To punch Texas cattle
Come-a tie-yi yippee yippee yea
Yippy yea
Come-a tie yi yippee yippee yea.
Oh, my butt’s in the saddle
My hand’s on the horn
I’m the best damned cowboy
That ever was born
Come-a tie-yi yippee yippee yea
Yippy yea
Come-a tie yi yippee yippee yea.
Any more questions?
No one has chimed in yet with the cost of the horse. I’m curious about that.
Price conversions from this site:
The Colt Peacemaker, the weapon that became known as “the gun that won the West” was a .45-caliber manufactured by Colt in 1873. At the time it sold for $17.00.
$259.80 in the year 2003 has the same “purchase power” as $17 in the year 1873
Cowboys driving cattle to the market could expect to make between $25 and $40 per month. A Trail Boss might make as much as $125 per month.
$666.86 in the year 2003 has the same “purchase power” as $40 in the year 1875
$2083.94 in the year 2003 has the same “purchase power” as $125 in the year 1875
You can get a good idea of the prices at the time here. (Warning: PDF file)
A good horse could set you back $700.
It is not clear whether these prices are in inflated Confederate Dollars, US Greenbacks at discount or coin. For instance, a 70 lb bushel of good corn is listed at $1.75. The country elevator price today is just under $2.00. A cavalry or artillery horse is shown at $700.00. In the horse short South of 1864 and with Confederate Dollars that may well be true.
Your standard cowboy of 1880 was not riding a cavalry / artillery quality horse of 15 to 16 hands, weighing 1000 lbs, of good compact confirmation, from five to ten years old and well broken. He was riding an undersized nag that he broke as he used it. Also the standard trail hand was probably riding his employer’s horse from a heard of home grown animals. The ten dollar horse of the song is surely an exaggeration but an indication of the general quality of working horses on the western plains.
With a slaughter market at $50.00 per hundred weight, a rough, green broke saddle horse equivalent to a 19th Century cow pony would cost maybe $500.00 today, and less but for the support of the slaughter market.