# Whenever an older show mentions money... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 15, 2017, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251 "2017-03-15T19:08:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/41 "2017-03-16T14:44:12Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Technically, they say $42mil _adjusted_ dollars, but they don’t say adjusted from what. Maybe it had a price tag of $15mil when built 80-100 years ago but the cost of living has gone up. They’ll _have_ to [revalue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revaluation) the dollar sooner or later–even with non-catastrophic rates of inflation, there will come a time when the current dollar has the buying power of the current penny, and the hundred dollar bill is the lowest practical one to carry. So they will need to either restart printing 500s, 10,000s, 100,000s and such, or lop 2 or 3 zeros off the value. So it isn’t at all unrealistic to have an adjusted 42 million that used to be 4.2 billion. ([Example Turkish banknote](http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-a-turkish-5-lirasi-bank-note-after-revaluation-in-2005-and-a-5000000-38669053.html) before and after lopping off 6 zeros.) ---
**Author:** ![eunoia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eunoia/32/97_2.png) [@eunoia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eunoia)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/42 "2017-03-16T15:15:39Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > They weren’t hired to kill him for $50k. That’s what they (the man’s wife and a corrupt insurance agent) expected to collect after they killed him and made it look like an accident. > > It’s one of those rare movies where Fred MacMurray plays a real bastard, the other two being _The Apartment_ and _The Caine Mutiny_. I recommend them all. Ah, that explains, thanks. My example is caca then, since this is really mostly about general purchasing power as incentive, not about criminal activity not following a standard curve of inflation. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/43 "2017-03-16T15:58:51Z")
I love looking at retro ads on FB. If there is a menu from a restaurant, or an advertisement from a grocery store - even nylon stockings, makeup, and clothing - I immediately go to the converter and find out how much it costs in today’s money. 59 cents for a can of hash seems like peanuts to us today, but it would have been a lot more costly to the customer way back when. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/44 "2017-03-16T16:32:21Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > So it isn’t at all unrealistic to have an adjusted 42 million that used to be 4.2 billion. Maybe, but we have no baseline for “adjustment” (nothing else is mentioned by price) so the number stands on its own. As an arbitrarily selected “big number”, it doesn’t work for me and sort of clanks when it comes up in the scene. I’m not saying it’s “unrealistic” or a flaw in the plot – I just think they should have picked a better imaginary price tag (or a different unit of currency than dollars). ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/45 "2017-03-16T17:41:23Z")
I’ve been doing this for quite a while, since before on-line inflation calculators existed (printed ratios were available in reference works). As I have stated in old posts of mine, I have been into scale modeling (kits and dioramas) for decades, and over that period in many forums (and magazine columns before that) I read people bemoaning the increase in prices. So you quickly get used to calculating the price increases for kits on the market for years to determine how much is just inflation-related and how much is just jacking up the prices. For me, this just naturally flows into wanting to convert buying power of amounts mentioned in old books, movies, and shows. This does seem to break down a bit when you try to figure Victorian era UK costs (e.g. the original early Sherlock Holmes stories) ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/46 "2017-03-16T17:57:13Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > Oh yes, all the time. Shows and also books. > > My favorite is when the price is for something that was highly priced at that time, and would now be much more affordable, relatively speaking. Like someone being so rich they could buy a deluxe microwave in 1980. I love this bit from _Back to the Future_ “Do you have a television set?” “Well, yeah, you know, we have two of them.” “Wow! You must be rich!” “Oh, honey, he’s teasing you. Nobody has two television sets.” ---
**Author:** ![BeeGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@BeeGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeeGee)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/47 "2017-03-16T18:09:44Z")
I read a lot of British mystery writers. The books range from WW1 to contemporary. I found this calculator: [https://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp](https://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp) which will convert 1922 pounds to present day dollars. I find it helps put things in context for me. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/48 "2017-03-16T18:38:35Z")
When comparing money amounts, it is good to remember that prices and wages don’t scale — standards of living have gone up. The average salary in 1968 Britain was only half the 2007 salary _in real terms_. … And I think OP speaks of, for example, a 1960 show set in 1960. What about a 1990 show set in 1870. My impression is that the dollar amounts in such films are often inflated over what they would have been. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/49 "2017-03-16T19:43:03Z")
I was watching **Test Pilot** the other day and Clark Gable (playing a cash-strapped barnstorming pilot) buys his new wife Myrna Loy a negligee that costs $60–which doesn’t sound like a big deal until you do the inflation calculation from 1938 and it comes to over $1000 in today’s money! For one nightie! Not that Myrna Loy isn’t worth it, but still… ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/50 "2017-03-16T20:48:40Z")
I won’t go to an inflation calculator, but if it’s something that’s supposed to be a lot of money, and it just isn’t, I will note it. The only example I can think of is when I’d just got back from Italy, early 1970s, and I saw an older ('60s era so not that much older) movie where a detective was trying to bribe a guy with 400 lire. When I was there that would have been a laughable amount to try to bribe somebody. Like, 75 cents. (I coulda been a millionaire in lire.) ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/51 "2017-03-16T21:49:29Z")
While watching _Boardwalk Empire_ when a dollar amount came up my girlfriend continuously asked me “how much is that in today’s money?” So I was looking it up. ---
**Author:** ![Elemenopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5e925/32.png) [@Elemenopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elemenopy)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/52 "2017-03-17T04:55:09Z")
Kinda, yeah. If I’m on a 19th century or previous literature kick, people are always going on about how “so-and-so is worth 400 pounds/yr” (in income or some sort of trust) so occasionally I look it up if context doesn’t make their socio-economic strata obvious. Also, I love looking at old Sears or Wards mail order catalogues and seeing the awesome stuff sold for pennies. A mahogany 1903 living room suite (identical to the one I have in my parlor, that I inherited part of, paid a couple thousand for the rest, then double that for new upholstery and such) oh, that cost $32 plus freight new. 🙂 I can’t find a catalog page online, but basically [this](https://10172-presscdn-0-75-pagely.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012_1108_KennedysC1_large.jpg). Don’t get me started on the Eastlake stuff that I collect for the upstairs. Also, have you seen some of the old home kits? :eek: They weren’t all Prairie bungalows. Oh, for a time machine… Also, I always loved how in the “Little House on the Prairie” books, the girls had saved a few pennies from several years back, and bought their high school supplies with them. And then a few months later, after Laura got a job, agonized at spending a quarter or so on calling cards. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251/53 "2017-03-17T10:13:40Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [Pretty far off](http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)–it is 6.28x for 1970, 10.11x for 1950, and 14.59x for 1930. (The furtherest that counter goes back is 1913, where it is 24.61x.) So in tne remake of _It’s A Wonderful Life_, George Bailey hits the cigar lighter, and says, “I wish I had fourteen and a half million dollars! HOT DOG!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whenever-an-older-show-mentions-money/782251.md?page=2)