# What household item would be worth the most in medieval times? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 7, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534 "2014-07-07T12:42:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/1 "2014-07-07T12:42:18Z")
This is possibly a question that invites too much speculation for a factual answer, but I want to see if there’s any obvious candidates. Say you had to go back to medieval England, in the early 14th century let’s say - the 1310s, 1320s. What one item from your house would medieval people recognise as something immediately worth a fortune? Something that most First World people in the 21st century have immediate access to, I mean. For instance, if you have a jar of nutmeg in your kitchen it would be worth an absolute fortune (although I don’t think it’s quite common enough to qualify as a ‘household item’). Any other obvious ones that medieval merchants would bite your hand off for? I reckon a solar powered calculator would be worth more than its weight in gold for clerical work. Things that require fuel or electricity to function would be worthless, likewise a gun with limited ammunition. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/2 "2014-07-07T12:44:34Z")
Atlas of the world. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/3 "2014-07-07T12:47:29Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Atlas of the world. Who would believe it? ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/4 "2014-07-07T12:56:17Z")
People with abacuses can calculate very quickly and a solar powered calculator stops at night, while the abacus works by candle light. My choice would be a knife set. A set of modern knives, a stone, and a steel. It would last forever and be extremely useful. My only question would be when good knives actually started to exist. Doesn’t this belong in IMHO? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/5 "2014-07-07T13:08:41Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > People with abacuses can calculate very quickly and a solar powered calculator stops at night, while the abacus works by candle light. > > My choice would be a knife set. A set of modern knives, a stone, and a steel. It would last forever and be extremely useful. My only question would be when good knives actually started to exist. I mean something like [this](http://www.homesolarinfo.com/image-files/solar-calculator-picture.jpg); the battery holding a charge so it can be used indoors or at night. It has the value of being instantly demonstrable although maybe Arabic numerals might trip a few people up. In any case, it’s infinitely better than an abacus especially for calculations with currency; it does the calculations for you. Modern knives wouldn’t be a bad idea, with modern metallurgy they would probably be valued as Damascus Steel. > [@](#): > > Doesn’t this belong in IMHO? Most likely, but I wondered if there were really obvious items whose value would be instantly appreciated, like nutmeg. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/6 "2014-07-07T13:22:07Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > Atlas of the world. Indeed … though any book would be extremely valuable. So valuable, books of that era were commonly chained to the shelves. My first thought was a gun. It was the technology to make such a thing that was missing back then, and even if you knew how to make one, there wasn’t the tools to do so. I understand the OP comment about ammo, but the technology to make casings out of brass and fashion lead bullets was common for a thousand years by then. If you had the recipe for gunpowder, certainly that would be easy enough to make. Cap’t Kirk made some on that barren world fighting a lizard thingie. The primer is the only hangup, but that’s only a problem for today’s guns. I don’t know enough about making primers to say, but would just a recipe work for that as well? Nitric acid and glycerin, little bit of sulfuric acid and viola, primer juice. Final answer: A book on the History of the Hundred Year’s War. ---
**Author:** ![CheshireKat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheshirekat/32/1207_2.png) [@CheshireKat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheshireKat)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/7 "2014-07-07T13:32:29Z")
A hand-cranked or treadle sewing machine, like the early ones that could sew leather and cloth. It could be easily demonstrated, so I think the value would be immediately apparent to households, merchants and even armies. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/8 "2014-07-07T13:43:51Z")
A gun isn’t a bad idea, but I think a flintlock gun specifically…and yes I have one hanging right over my fireplace. A flintlock is similar enough in function to the gonnes of the era that it would be understood immediately. It is the flintlock ignition mechanism itself that would make the piece valuable. It uses principles they already understand, people had been using Flint and steel to make sparks for a long time. Mechanically, it is simple and not beyond the technology of the time. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/9 "2014-07-07T13:48:37Z")
I would add a caveat that would preclude the calculators and guns. The problem with many modern inventions like that is that you would probably be killed as a wizard or some such. Surely you would need to take something that would be revolutionary, but would fit in with the local stage of development. When I was a kid, we used to spend hours discussing what we would take with us if we were transported back in time. In fact the best thing to take would be knowledge. I guess a small solar powered tablet with a carefully selected encyclopedia on it and a good history of the time. If you know the winners, you can make a fortune gambling, or at least being sure to stay on the winning side. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/10 "2014-07-07T13:52:49Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I don’t know enough about making primers to say, but would just a recipe work for that as well? Nitric acid and glycerin, little bit of sulfuric acid and viola, primer juice. And where do you think you are going to get those in the middle ages? In principle, you could probably make them if you knew enough chemistry, and if you could get the necessary apparatus (perhaps you could persuade the local alchemist to help you with that, except that there probably wouldn’t be a local one), but it would be a long, difficult, tedious, and probably dangerous process, and that is before you have even started trying to make any actual explosives. > [@watchwolf49](#): > > Final answer: A book on the History of the Hundred Year’s War. Again, why would they believe it? Would you believe it if some stranger handed you a book purporting to be about some future war? As far as modern books go, medieval people would probably be more impressed by the stuff they are made from, paper, rather than the contents (but unless you could teach them the techniques of paper making, a book’s worth of it wouldn’t be of much value to them). ---
**Author:** ![Whiskey\_Dickens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9fc348/32.png) [@Whiskey\_Dickens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whiskey_Dickens)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/11 "2014-07-07T14:02:51Z")
I wouldn’t discount spices like nutmeg. Although I would probably take cloves or cinnamon instead. [Per this U of Toronto cite](http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/wwwfiles/archives/munro5/SPICES1.htm) a pound of cloves would be equivalent to 8 days average wages in the 1430’s. A pound of saffron (a little less likely to have sitting around waiting for your time travel exercise) would be the equivalent of 30 days’ wages in the 1490’s. Saffron’s price hasn’t changed as much as other spices though, which means that a pound in the modern day is still about a week and a half’s average wages. Spices are quite portable, everyone would recognize their value, and you don’t need to be worried about getting quartered and having your head put on a spike because people think you’re a sorcerer. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/12 "2014-07-07T14:06:15Z")
What about silk? If you jumped in to the timewarp with two or three modern evening gowns, how much could you probably fetch? Sure, they won’t be in style and you might have to sell them as scrap fabric so there’s a potential loss there, but then I think silk was quite rare so you still might do rather well. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/13 "2014-07-07T14:10:45Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > … > Final answer: A book on the History of the Hundred Year’s War. > [@njtt](#): > > … > Again, why would they believe it? Would you believe it if some stranger handed you a book purporting to be about some future war? As far as modern books go, medieval people would probably be more impressed by the stuff they are made from, paper, rather than the contents (but unless you could teach them the techniques of paper making, a book’s worth of it wouldn’t be of much value to them). You might do better taking a Bible or copies of ancient philosophers. Those would be recognized by educated, literate folk. In 1350, God still created the heavens and the earth in the beginning, that hasn’t changed. People today might not believe it as much but we haven’t removed it from the bible. Most of the educated folk in those days primarily read in Latin and/or Greek, so if you have it in English that would be, like, super awesome to them as long as you can keep the Church from burning you at the stake for heresy. Good times. ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/14 "2014-07-07T14:11:32Z")
An aluminum frying pan. Before the invention of modern electrolytic methods of refining it, aluminum was worth more than gold. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/15 "2014-07-07T14:15:28Z")
A **mountain bike**. ---
**Author:** ![Dravin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Dravin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dravin)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/16 "2014-07-07T14:17:51Z")
If you won’t accept nutmeg as common, what about pepper? Also, if you remove the immediately from the equation you might be able to make some money in the long run off of something like potatoes or popcorn. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/17 "2014-07-07T14:18:26Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Indeed … though any book would be extremely valuable. I’d think some kind of a simple home remedy book helping to diagnose and treat common maladies and injuries, perhaps something like [this](http://www.amazon.com/Mayo-Clinic-Book-Home-Remedies/dp/1603201599). ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/18 "2014-07-07T14:27:12Z")
There are a few contenders IMO: Wristwatch Ball-point pen Paper (still very rare in 1300’s Europe) Scissors Matches Reading glasses Coca-Cola Blue jeans Chess board Bicycle Probably a thousand other things I’m overlooking, too. Would something like a scrubbing brush be valuable? How about a screwdriver and screws? Playing cards? ---
**Author:** ![CheshireKat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheshirekat/32/1207_2.png) [@CheshireKat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheshireKat)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/19 "2014-07-07T14:28:49Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > I’d think some kind of a simple home remedy book helping to diagnose and treat common maladies and injuries, perhaps something like [this](http://www.amazon.com/Mayo-Clinic-Book-Home-Remedies/dp/1603201599). And you could play doctor for real. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534/20 "2014-07-07T14:47:07Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > There are a few contenders IMO: > > Wristwatch Would two wristwatches allow the calculation of longitude? The problem would be, though, that the technology of the time would not come close to being able to reproduce them. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-household-item-would-be-worth-the-most-in-medieval-times/692534.md?page=2)