Reflections on prices

[lightman]

I just opened a can of IMR 4350 that had a price tag of $7.85 on it. The CCI large rifle primers that I will use to fire these loads had a .97 cent tag on them. Both of these are the last of that stash. Of course, I was making about $6.00 an hour back then. When I retired last year I was making a little more per hour than a pound of powder at the stores cost. So I guess overall that my ability to make a living at least kept up with inflation.

Just idle thoughts while I'm cleaning primer pockets and working the de-burring tool. I remember paying less than that for powder and primers and I expect some of you have too. I think the next batch of powder in my stash is in the $12.00 range and the primers will be like $1.35. I expect these to all work fine as they have been stored in a controlled environment and out of the sunlight.

[dragon813gt]

The grocery store is the eye opener. Reloading components are discretionary. When it's a necessity like food and you have a fixed budget it's hard. $100 doesn't get you much even when items are on sale.

[dg31872]

In 1963 I was running a cash register in the local grocery store. At that time, on the average, each large bag of groceries cost about ten dollars. In other words, forty bucks was four large bags of food. Cigarettes and alcohol not included.

[dg31872]

I forgot, at that time I was paid $1.25 per hour.

[woody1]

In 1963 I was in college. Graduated in 1965. I never paid more than $120 per term for tuition and fees or about $350 per year tops.

Same school tuition and fees now tops $10,000.

[454PB]

I still have a can of Hodgdon HS5 that I bought around 1974.....price was $3.95.

When I started handloading about 1970, CCI primers were 39 cents per hundred.

But.....I was earning $290 per month.

[bstone5]

Working in a Machine Shop, paid $1.15 per hour in 1964, worked a lot of 72 hour weeks and was happy with a check over $100.00 with the overtime.

Drove a Chusman 3 wheel with an 8 HP motor to work and left the 1957 Ford truck at home to save on gas money.

Did not get a lot of money even after finishing the Marine Corp and college as an Engineer, first big money was working offshore as a diver doing mixed gas dives to 300 feet, with depth pay each dive was $800.00 dollars.

Only worked as a diver for two years but made enough to pay off the home I still live in today.

Left a job paying $850.00 per month as an Engineer to go offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and dive in 1975.

At 71 now and retired still liked the offshore industry and working on offshore drilling units.

We all have different life experiences depending where we lived and the environment at the time.

Getting old is not bad it is the trip thru time that is important.

My father started me reloading and casting pistol bullets when I was in junior high school. Still have some of my fathers reloading equipment

[salpal48]

More and More People Reflect How Cheap things were Years ago. . But in reality it is all Relative. . it's Look cheat but You pay was in line with those cheap Items. Today There is More to Buying Than Before.
. Now your Paying More But your Pay has somewhat went up accordingly. Some people agree and some Don't.
Fast Forward
now Your paying More But , Getting Junk. and Your Pay Is going Down.

[30Carbine]

Reading these post made me think of my grandpa he taught me to reload when I was 11. I will be 41 next Friday I got all his stuff when he passed. I still have pounds of old powder he had and no idea how old it really is, so I looked at a pound of unique he had that I have been using. It's card board with a red top that you pulled up the plastic center, it says Hercules unique smokeless rifle pistol shotgun powder. I don't know how old it is but the green price tag on the side says 7.99 I looked at one I got a couple weeks ago it says 20.99 on it with a cockeyed label. Just made me think of him thank you guys.

[dubber123]

As perspective I believe a Colt SAA cost the average cowboy of the 1880s about 6 months pay. Take 1/2 of a years pay now and imagine paying that for a single, fixed sight revolver. Guns sure are cheap nowadays :)

[OptimusPanda]

As perspective I believe a Colt SAA cost the average cowboy of the 1880s about 6 months pay. Take 1/2 of a years pay now and imagine paying that for a single, fixed sight revolver. Guns sure are cheap nowadays :)

This got me looking for the original price. This is about as close as I could find without digging too long. $17.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/16/arts/1873-colt-revolver-brings-record-price-for-a-firearm.html
Now the hard part, figuring the value of $17 in today's money.

[WILCO]

Inflation. It's a killer.

[retread]

Cost of everything has gone up? No, the value of our money has gone down. In 1961 I paid $18.75 for a set of RCBS dies. I was earning $1.37/hr. While everything has gone up, the actual cost of our hobby has gone down (if figuring in inflation and the lower manufacturing costs due to high tech machining, ie, CNC etc.) I also used to get surplus 4831 for $1/lb if I brought in my own container.

[smokeywolf]

I remember gas wars and 20 cents/gal.

I remember Dad paying $5.00 for a brick of 22s; a penny a shot.

My first job in a Chevron station paid $2.10/hr. (minimum wage at the time). After taxes, that bought 5 gallons of gas. Today, you'd have to make at least $20.00 to buy 5 gallons of gas here.

[Hickory]

Inflation. It's a killer.
Especially on a fixed income.

[shdwlkr]

I remember when premium gas was $0.39 a gallon, truck cost $4000 and a car a hot rod at that cost less. I remember when you could walk in pay for a firearm and walk out no paper work, a box of 22 lr rifle hollow points was $0.50. I remember when I went to work for engineering following my dad who went from teaching ($3000) a year to engineering for almost the same but he got better hours, less stress he worked there for 19 years and retired making $19,000 a year I retired from the same job making $56,000 20 years later. Now they make $65,000 and I have been retired for over 15 years. It all depends at what point in time you are looking at things.
My first truck cost me $4000 my next truck that I am looking at will cost almost $60,000 inflation is a real eye opener. Someone mentioned groceries well I can go to the store and drop $200 today and have only three bags not completely full of food. If the dollar drops off the currency of the world then expect food to get real expensive, gasoline or diesel go up in price, gas in your home to go up, electricity to get expensive, and really anything you buy to go up, actually way up from where it is today. Welcome to the new price of things.

[dragon813gt]

I watched Die Hard on Friday. Gas in California was in the $.70-.80 range in the late eighties. It was the late nineties and was $.99 in my area. Cheap gas wasn't that long ago. We will never see those prices again.

[lightman]

Well everyone, your comments are interesting. I really thought I would hear more about what you remembered paying for components 30 and 40 years ago. Like I said, these were just idle thoughts as I sat at the bench and spun the de-burring tool. I was a little surprised to actually see that my wages seem to have kept up with or out ran inflation. At least in the reloading component world. A few years ago I was paying $4.75 for a gallon of diesel for the truck that I used in my sideline business. $175 a tank hurt. I just hope that I saved enough for my investments to help when inflation outruns my fixed retirement check.

[Freightman]

Well everyone, your comments are interesting. I really thought I would hear more about what you remembered paying for components 30 and 40 years ago. Like I said, these were just idle thoughts as I sat at the bench and spun the de-burring tool. I was a little surprised to actually see that my wages seem to have kept up with or out ran inflation. At least in the reloading component world. A few years ago I was paying $4.75 for a gallon of diesel for the truck that I used in my sideline business. $175 a tank hurt. I just hope that I saved enough for my investments to help when inflation outruns my fixed retirement check.!.
Hang on the retirement ck. will be surpassed post hast,ask me how I know:???:

[edler7]

I've got a pound Unique can with the price of $4.49 written on it in ball point pen.

2- 20 round boxes of 7mm rifle ammo on close out from K-mart for 88 cents each, marked down from the full price of $3.44

[fatelk]

Someone told me once that inflation is taxation. If you burried a chunk of precious metal in the back yard 40 years ago, and dig it up, it's real value/ buying power is probably about the same.

On the other hand if you burried a jar full of hundred dollar bills 40 years ago and dig them up, their real value/ buying power is now a fraction of what it was.

Where did that value go? It didn't just vanish, someone took it and spent it. By printing more money, they're able to take value from your wealth and spend it, without you even knowing. I thought that was a fascinating concept.

[Morgan61]

Last year I came across a box of 30-30 ammo that forgot all about. Price sticker was $6.95 and I think it was 10-15 years old.

[dtknowles]

Last year I came across a box of 30-30 ammo that forgot all about. Price sticker was $6.95 and I think it was 10-15 years old.

Sort of sound right, it is going for around $15 at Walmart today. For a price to double in a decade is not that strange.

Tim

[starmac]

I do not remember the exact prices, but out of neccessity in 75 (cuz I couldn't afford as much ammo as I wanted to shoot) I bought everything I absolutely had to have to load my own rifle ammo, well under 50 bucks, I'm thinking under 30.
This included a lee loader, powder, primers and j'words. I do not remember if I picked up a manial or not at the time, might have just used the suggested loads in the instructions.

But the catch, is I was makeing 2.25 an hour then too.

[wv109323]

In about 1975, when a Texas Insturment(I can't remember the model no.) calculator went from $169 to $149, I broke out the check book.
Last week I bought nearly an identical calculator for $1.00.

[lightman]

Yeah, electronic stuff tends to get cheaper after its introduced. Look at flat screen tv's, plasma tv's, electronic scales and as mentioned, calculators. Part of this is probably due to where its made now.

I made a detailed inventory of my powder, primers and brass a few months ago and placed a decent sized order. It was interesting to see the prices on the cans of powder from over the years. A few empty cans that I saved went from $4 to $7. The next range was around $12 then up to $16-$18. Then up to $22-$24.

[Budzilla 19]

I found two boxes of Alberts swaged lead bullets yesterday,(anybody remember them ?) 500 to box and the price marked was $16.65!!! They were in some old stuff from an estate. Some CCI primers for $1.35 a hundred.

[higgins]

It's not just discretionary spending and spending on necessities that cost us money. Think about how many things we now think we must have that hadn't even been invented in the 60s and 70s. The computer you're looking at now; the internet service it's connected to; cable or satellite TV; the outrageously expensive smartphones and cell phone service charges for them (I'm still perfectly happy with a flip phone and no landline).

When it comes to discretionary spending, I feel sorry for young people who will probably never be able to retire or otherwise be financially secure because they think they "need" everything that's hip, cool, and in, and the latest iteration of it; enough clothes to fill a closet the size of a small bedroom; a car with heated seats, steering wheel, etc.; a house with 5 bedrooms and four baths for two adults and maybe a couple of children to live in, with all the upgrades of course. And the house must be redecorated from top to bottom every few years. The list goes on.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Back in the early `60`s I recall a cigarette vending machine that for .20 cents (2 dimes) you got a pack of Camels with a full book of paper matches and .02 cents (2 pennies) change. I also remember the gas wars when a gal. of Regular would drop below .20 cents a gal. at a Gulf station in our little town.Robert

[robg]

Petrol at 30 pence a gallon now £6 a gallon but they price it in litres so it fools the idiots £1.10 .80% tax on it

[Bills Shed]

I made a detailed inventory of my powder, primers and brass a few months ago and placed a decent sized order. It was interesting to see the prices on the cans of powder from over the years. A few empty cans that I saved went from $4 to $7. The next range was around $12 then up to $16-$18. Then up to $22-$24.

Here in Tasmania, Australia our dollar is now only worth US$0.76. A 500 gram (1+Lb) is near $60.00 and primers are $6.00/100. What makes me cranky is that we have our own powder manufacturer and much of it is exported to the US and rebranded. It is cheaper over there than here.
I still have a few .224 hornet projectiles that I bought 25 years ago and they were then AU$14.00 / 100, now they are well over AU $40.00
I bought my swaging gear from the US several years ago when we were above parity to your dollar and it has paid for itself already. Ammunition is getting expensive. The actual firearms are getting cheaper.???
Bill

[Half Dog]

My wife is the one who makes purchases in our house. I see the prices and refuse to pay the amount.

[leeggen]

Wife has Rom 5 shot 22 pistol that was her mom's. Along with it is a bx of 22 shorts, Peters, 35 cents if I remember right. That bx looks funny setting beside the CCI 22LR HP 100 count. Found a bx of 3in. 410's at $2.50. Last bx I bought was $11.00. I remember the boss at the service station was mad as could be, gas was going up .02 per gallon. Making it 29 cent per gallon. He just knew no one would by it at that price.
Remember you could go rabbit hunting for the weekend for about $10.00 that was shells and food and gas there and back. Yeah I am getting older.
CD