how to find out what money was worth back then

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just wondering if anyone has a site to go to to find out what money was worth in such and such a year? Like if I had $10 in my pocket in 1900, what would that equate to today?

Need the site or the calculator, not the amount for my example.

thanks!

I dont know of such a site.

I was watching a PBS BBC drama about life in wartime Britian.
A character exclaimed about how "I dont want to pay X amount for a gallon of petrol!"

So - I had both inflation, and foriegn currency to deal with.

For most of the 20th centurey a German Mark, a Franc, and British Shilling, are each about the same as an American Quarter. If you use the rule of the thumb that prices double every 15 to 20 years... I did the math... well the character was exclaiming about the equivalent of eight dollars a gallon for gas in the USA today! I dont blame him for being upset!

Also- minimum wage is a good benchmark- the original minimum wage was 25 cents in like 1930.
They raised it to a dollar during the Kennedy years. Its now- what - seven dollars an hour?
You can do the math in terms of fractions of the minimum wage.

So a 25 cent item in 1940 (when minimmum wage was around 35 cents would be equivalent to five dollars today ( ie five sevenths of an hours minimum wage).

You can use comedities as a benchmark.
Pentagon weapon systems are major conundrum when costs are compared over time.

A WWII fighter planes costed about a quarter million a pop.

In the first gulf war they came out with the stealth fighter which costed 100 million a pop.

How do you campare the two?

A family car costed about 1000 bucks in the early fourties. The average family car in 1990 was about 10,000 dollars.

So a Corsair, or Spitfire, costed society the quivalent of 250 family cars. A stealth fighter costs society the equivalent of ten thousand family cars!

found one

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

thanks though.

hmm...only goes back to 1913...can't have everything.

Often they make these up by looking at a 'basket of goods', basics that everyone buys.

In 1900, I seem to remember (reading) that 1 pound was worth $5. If that's a help.