20 dollar bill vs. 1 oz. silver coin

[LoveSilver]

There is an article about that here: https://medium.com/@zack_canada/20-dollar-bill-vs-1oz-silver-coin-6709feeb94b9?source=friends_link&sk=452bc38edc3244d01c706460a2824af8

It is interesting to see comparing those two over 100 years with 3 reference points, 1912, 1960 and 2019. It would be very interesting if there could be a data comparing similar things in UK over maybe 200 or 300 years of time. I am sure that data like that exists somewhere. 

I am serious about this. If anybody in the world could add facts to usage of silver in ancient times (actually at all times since ever) would be GB. If somebody could write what somebody would pay for something in let's say 1500's or even earlier. That would be brilliant. From article above it was interesting to find out stuff like that from 100 years ago. Imagine how interesting would be to find out more about usage of silver in GB in for example in year 1600 or something!? Please pitch in who can 😀.

My offer to you: write a whole article and I'll tell you where to post it and how. Or supply facts and I'll write it, post it and give you all the credits.

[LoveSilver]

Unfortunately no takers for this offer?

[JackKlugman]

10 hours ago, LoveSilver said:

Unfortunately no takers for this offer?

It's a very interesting idea you have but alot of work ! 

[LoveSilver]

JackKlugman but its' worth it, right?

And this forum is great place to start. Silver collectors and enthusiasts, can't be better than that. I hope somebody will pitch in with historical data. I am dying to find out what was a piece of silver worth in medieval UK? What was a silver money they used? Denominations? Who struck it? Could you go to other places and pay with it? How much was a horse or chicken? Did king control money emission? Where was silver dug out and manufactured into coins? Did England trade with other nations? How did they pay to each other? 

For example I know for fact that in early 1800's Britain and France were at war. Napoleon was a bad guy. Still you could find and use French gold sovereigns or bars in Britain. Clearly gold was gold, silver was silver, didn't matter where it was coming from. 

Things like that.

[RacerCool]

The Romans used to pay 1/10 ounce of silver (a denarius) to a soldier as a day's wages. So roughly, that's a silver dime for your day's efforts. 

In today's terms, for a 40 hour, 5 day work week, that would be 192 ounces of silver per year. Or, for $18/ounce, that's $3,456 per year.

For gold, a $20 gold coin (a double Eagle), about 1 ounce of gold, about 120 years ago was $20. Today it's about $1,500, which according to my understanding, that $20 gold coin back in the day would buy about what the $1,500 would buy today. If so, then that $20 gold coin hasn't suffered inflation.

[Murph]

Barter was more common than money in a lot of the middle ages.

I guess if you were travelling you might be more inclined to carry pennies but then not that many people travelled.  Even in the last few hundred years a lot of the population wouldn't travel further than the nearest market town in the whole of their lives.

A Denarius was a 72nd of a pound to start with iirc but slowly dropped to 1/84 and 1/92 or thereabouts.  Afaik legionaries only got from somewhere around 200 to 500 denarii a year depending on when your talking about but it's hard to tell as they were charged for almost every piece of equipment so deductions would reduce the actual amount of silver they received.

There are also stories that they received some of their wages in salt from which salary supposedly comes.

 

[gustavus]

On 14/09/2019 at 08:02, RacerCool said:

The Romans used to pay 1/10 ounce of silver (a denarius) to a soldier as a day's wages. So roughly, that's a silver dime for your day's efforts. 

In today's terms, for a 40 hour, 5 day work week, that would be 192 ounces of silver per year. Or, for $18/ounce, that's $3,456 per year.

For gold, a $20 gold coin (a double Eagle), about 1 ounce of gold, about 120 years ago was $20. Today it's about $1,500, which according to my understanding, that $20 gold coin back in the day would buy about what the $1,500 would buy today. If so, then that $20 gold coin hasn't suffered inflation.

Ounce of gold or 16 ounces silver was common workmans pay in month. (On late 1800 usa).

[RacerCool]

2 hours ago, gustavus said:

Ounce of gold or 16 ounces silver was common workmans pay in month. (On late 1800 usa).

Wow, that's quite a different GSR than we've had for a while now.