Re: Gold prices plummet!

On Sep 25, 7:02 pm, "Bruce Remick" <rem...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
"mazorj" <maz...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

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"oly" <oly2...@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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On Sep 25, 8:31 am, "Mr. Jaggers" <lugburzman[at]yahoo[dot]com> wrote:
j-rod wrote:
oly wrote:

...
I can remember five cent first class stamps, but I might be
stretching it a bit to say that I really remember the five cent
candy bar. Even at age seven or eight (c.1967) we were just a bit
past that on the long march of U.S. monetary inflation.

I always admired the inventor fellow in the Scrooge McDuck series -
Gyro Gearloose or some name like that???

Huey, Dewey and Louie were a little bratty, 'tho basically good boys.
They were a little bit like Popeye's "Swee' Pea" - whose the heck
kids were they, anyway???

oly

I can remember my father paying 23¢ for a gallon of gas.

When I started driving is was already up to 30¢.

I remember when vending machine cigarettes cost 23c as well. You'd put a
quarter in the machine and out would pop a pack of Camels with 2 cents
change under the cellophane. The lucky customers got one, maybe two, 55
doubled dies.

James the Non-Smoker- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

< Limited to certain upstate NY vending machines only, if memory serves....
<
< I wonder if the jobber who serviced those machines ever knew...

I remember those, at a time when I had never ventured farther north than
Noo Yawk City.  I also saw them locally, farther south.  The pennies
always were shiny new ones but the ones I saw were common dates.  Since
we're playing the Memory Lane prices game, I remember:

Working in a store in 1964 and selling cigarettes at 17 cents, two for 33
cents for the "regular" size (Luckies, Camels), 18 cents and 2 for 35
cents for king size and filter tips.

I rember buying "Wings" for 18¢ and some other obscure brand that offered
what looked like a Scotch tape mouthpiece.  I lived in RI where many of the
1955 DDO's were found.  My dad found two for me.



Gas below 30 cents.  Asking my father what "ESSO" stood for while the
attendant pumped our gas, cleaned our windshield, and checked the oil.
Dad having to specify "use the detergent oil" if it was low.

I ran into some 15¢/gallon gas wars in Florida in 1965 when convenience
stores began adding fuel pumps.



Stamps at 4 cents, and IIRC, even the 3-cent era.

The nickel 1-oz. Hershey bar of the 1950s, and later around 1970 when they
raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. - creating a BIG stink
from chocolate lovers.

My parents gave me 5¢ "babysitting money" to watch my younger brother in the
early 1950's.  I was able to fill a small brown bag with penny candies from
the local mom & pop store for that nickel.

Driving my wife-to-be's new $2,000 1968 Chevy Nova, and later plunking
down the extraordinary amount of $3,000 for an orange 1973 VW Super
Beetle.

In the Army in 1962, I found that a $100 bill usually gave one lots of
choices at the local used car lots.  I chose a 1951 Chevy for $50 and drove
it away.



$2000 per semester for tuition with room & board at a top-level
university.

I paid $820 for my first year at Rhode Island School of Design in 1959.
Tuition there now is higher than Brown University next door.



Blue Whitman coin folders at around 15 cents each.  Banks that
occasionally had real silver dollars for wide-eyed young collectors.

Youre' lucky with the folders.  The ones I remember were 35¢.  My mom worked
in a bank in the 1950's and on Fridays she would bring home 20 silver
dollars for me to date-check.  I was only able to afford a couple
medium-toughies, but it was fun looking.



McDonald hamburgers at 15 cents, cheeseburgers for 19 cents.

The small 5-cent Coke bottles (around 6-3/4 oz.) from the machine at the
barber shop (75 cents for a "regular boy's haircut") and you had to put
the empty back in the partitioned wooden case or cough up two cents for
the bottle deposit.

Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today?  I recall the 5¢
bottles as well as the occasional high tech machine that offered several
different brand and flavor options.  Tough choice between grape and orange.
Never paid more than 50¢ for a haircut until I went into the Army.



Asking neighbors for their empty Coke and Pepsi bottles to redeem the
2-cent deposits at the grocery store.

And last but quite possibly the best - the store clerk automatically
throwing a free churchkey into the bag with every purchase of a $1.10
six-pack.  If you didn't buy any beer they were 5 cents but everyone
already had a drawer full of them.

I always carried one of my own, as did most kids (er, young men) who drank
beer.  A couple of Giant Imperial Quarts (GIQ's) of Narragansett at 50¢ each
were usually enough to do the trick, whatever the trick might have been.



Oh, one more... In the 1950s, hearing from our elders that the 1950s,
which we now regard as the "good old days," actually sucked and the good
old days of 5-cent bread, 10-cent gas, and 75-cent steak dinners with all
the trimmings already were behind us.

For my parents, starting out during the Depression, there weren't as many
"good old days" memories as I had.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Tuition for my first two semesters at the University of Illinois in
'77-'78 was $450 each semester (books another $150 or so). My dad was
a grain farmer who was doing very well in those days and I had no
money worries. The cost of everything plus some monthly allowance $$$
was $3,000 per year. I bought several nice 1904 Liberty $20s for
under $250 in the winter of 1977-78 and sold them about eighteen
months later for a triple. That was my beer and pizza and personal
library/books money for several semesters plus a new color TV.

While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through 15
years earlier, I can regale my many nieces and newphews with that
number nowadays.

My youngest sister (nine years younger) attended Illinois Wesleyan
(sic) University and my dad said that her 1st year costs more or less
totaled my entire four years at U of I.

Some of my earlier financial memories involve Nixon's horseshit "Wage
and Price Controls". By then, I was old enough to notice that lots of
little things popped in price after the controls were lifted.

oly
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Gold prices plummet!
    ... Camels with 2 cents change under the cellophane. ... with penny candies from the local mom & pop store for that nickel. ... If you didn't buy any beer they ... "Wage and Price Controls". ...
    (rec.collecting.coins)
  • Re: Gold prices plummet!
    ... for 35 cents for king size and filter tips. ... when they raised the price by cutting the content to 7/8-oz. ... with penny candies from the local mom & pop store for that nickel. ... drank beer. ...
    (rec.collecting.coins)
  • Re: Gold prices plummet!
    ... for 35 cents for king size and filter tips. ... Aren't those small bottles making a limited comeback today? ... drank beer. ... While that tuition price may sound stiff to those who went through 15 ...
    (rec.collecting.coins)
  • Re: Plastic bottles
    ... but the price is too high. ... >> two liter bottles of house brand soda on sale for 59 to 79 cents a ... 2L soda bottles should be about 25 cents each. ...
    (rec.crafts.brewing)
  • Re: The Most Expensive Tap Water In The World
    ... price in small bottles was comparable with beer, ... probably logical since the labor costs are about the same. ...
    (rec.travel.europe)