Purple, but it was really hard to get a good, stable red color. Cochineal is about as stable a natural red dye as you can get and would be quite valuable. Bring over some of the insects and prickly-pear cactus and you’re in business - as a bonus, you can eat the catus, too, both leaves and fruit. You can use the dye not only for fabric but also cosmetics and food.
The dye was a major South American export during the colonial period. By the 17th century it was being imported as far as India.
I’d take a AR-15 for sniping. Any one single gun isn’t going to make that much difference in a fight, where you could snipe from outside the distance when the warlord or king’s men are going to be expecting trouble.
(My emphasis.)
I’m not contesting that there was a time when they were common, but does anyone have them now? Do you still have your mother’s old one?
A box of ziplock bags.
Smooth, flexible material that you can see through, just like glass!
You could pretty much name your price, I’d imagine.
Regarding sewing machines … electric sewing machines still have the ability to operate manually, it’s just a pain in the butt. I’m pretty sure any competent medieval blacksmith could add, say, a hand crank to any modern unit, for instant medieval operability.
One problem would be the language barrier. I dont think modern french would be any good with old french just as much as I’d have a terrible problem learning to understand old english.
Probably the most valuable “item” in my home would be spices. I do have a few pounds of spices in he cupboard, including lots of foreign, imported ones like nutmeg, clove, and pepper.
If you want the most money per weight, I bet you’d do well bringing compass needles into the past. Or sewing needles. Or crochet hooks. Metallurgy is so much better now than it was. Modern stainless knives would also be a big hit.
My box of kitchen matches (the light-anywhere type) would probably fetch a nice sum. And my solar-powered water resistant wrist watch.
I’d think you would need to bring a lot of clothing to be really valuable. But yes, some bottles of brightly-colored dye (in my basement) would fetch a nice price.
Or maybe some seed potatoes.
Perhaps the OP’s rule should be - what do you have in your house right now. There are a lot of suggestions for things that are clearly not common household items, but are easily obtained if you want.
If the idea is to get rich and get out, things are a bit different. With exotic items you need to be careful not to saturate the market. You might be able to sell one for a high price, but you risk saturating your very limited market if you have many. Also, your only useful market will be the nobility. There was no middle class worth mentioning, so the populace was mostly dirt poor.
So my list of items would be:
Atlas
Binoculars
Telescope (Celestron 8 - I have one in the cellar)
For those who are firearms enthusiasts, I suspect a high powered rifle with telescopic sights and a box or two of ammunition would be an interesting sell. This is an assassin’s weapon. A demonstrated ability to pick off the commander of an army at a distance would be rather valuable. It wouldn’t matter too much that you could only do it a limited number of times. You might only need to do it once a year.
Vibrator? Nothing like, um, soothing those back kinks out after a hard day in the fields.
That reminds me of an answer I made to a similar question years ago: Viagra or Cialis.
I’m not sure what one could bring back from that era which would fetch a good price in the 21rst century. Its not like say going back to the 1930’s and buying corporate stock or even Babe Ruth’s autograph. The only thing of real value back then was gold.
Art of course would be valuable but the art pieces like paintings are large and bulky.
They had woad, madder and weld. Those can make quite bright cloth (see, for instance, the unicorn tapestries, or Lincoln Green)
Thinking of the things I have in my house right now, I’d say either the hounskull Bascinet or the arming sword would fetch the best price of everything I have. If I’m not allowed actual Medieval items I own, then my binoculars. A thing that is recognisably of value immediately, no need for explanations (like, say, my microscope would entail).
That was my first thought. Other solid contenders would be a modern bicycle, and a jar of aspirin/ibuprofen/Tylenol/something like that. Or a wide-spectrum antibiotic, if you could manage to explain what it is.
What about plastic containers?
A Thermos?
I have a bucket of nails that could fetch a pretty penny. Or 5 penny, or 10 penny.
Again if the goal is just to make as much money as fast as you can what about a simple digital camera, laptop, printer and some sort of solar power ability.
I realize its only going to last until the paper or toner give up but I’d imagine the wealthy might pay a pretty penny for a “photo” of themselves.
I have one. 1910 Singer in working order. Over the past three years I’ve restored two others to working condition.
I also have a 170+ year old spinning wheel which would also be extremely valuable in early Medieval Europe as a wheel is MUCH more productive than a drop spindle.
Also have a four-harness jack loom, though at present it’s disassembled.
I’m probably an outlier, though…
Mechanical sewing machines are around, in more households than you probably realize. A lot of quilters and seamsters like the old mechanical machines and keep them around. Some are still in use, others are mostly for decoration.
Not sure what I own that would be valuable. I have a 12-harness jack loom. They allow fancier patterning of the cloth than counterbalance looms, or at least you can do it more easily. I have a ton of books, but I’m doubtful how valuable they would seem due to the difference in language. I have brightly dyed, colorfast yarns and cotton and silk cloth. Fancy glass beads? I have a collection of those.
Rifling a wrapped barrel isn’t that tough and it was still pretty much the standard into the American Revolution. And rifling machines aren’t all that tough being mostly wood except for the cutter ----- which cuts as much by repetition as hardness/sharpness. (I spent a summer in the smithy down Williamsburg ages ago)
The gunpowder circa 1500 (not to be confused with basic black powder) and 1700 wasn’t all that different. What did change was the level to which it was screened.