When did I become my Dad?

[tenngun]

Back in my day my dad told me. Things was cheaper. I often heard about ten cent gas and six hundred dollar new cars.
Well prices is always going up.
Powder was three dollars a pound when I started. And lead, I could get that at the scrap yard for a quarter.
Gas was thirty three cents, and if I took the trouble a refinery was ten miles away an twenty eight cents there
I’m getting a musket, expect it in March or April sent off for some .75 mould.
I like Lee, and I Like Callahan, but they don’t make biggings had to get Lyman. .715 for cartridge. .735 for my tight loads.
Blocks run about ninety.
Well the first one I ever bought was thirty, so I expect the price.
But near fifty for the handles?????
Well one set fits lots of blocks. So Lyman can’t sell as many.
And you can’t make ten things and sell them price of a thousand.
But I have to say price of handles took me by surprise
Back and my day
Hold it… how my dads words get in my mouth.

 

[TDM]

Very true on all counts. And I do the same.

 

[waarp8nt]

My dad told similar stories of low prices, here are some prices I remember when I started driving.

Gas was $0.99, sometimes on sale for $0.89

Lead was $0.10 to $0.25 prices fluctuate with the market.

Silver was $2.75 to $3.25 per ounce prices fluctuate with the market.

.22 shells were $0.99 per 50

410 shells were always high $6.99

Marlin model 60 was $69.99

H&R shotgun was $79.99

As I recall or if my memory serves me correctly.

 

[sleepingbulldog]

@waarp8nt we must be about the same age, my first rifle was a Marlin model 60 and I'm pretty sure I paid either $69.99 or $79.99. I remember the Model 70 was $10 more so I bought the 60.

I used to get .22 ammo even cheaper than that, a brick of Winchester Wildcat was less than $10 at the farm store where my mom worked, and I got a 20% discount.

 

[sheriff john]

And part-time jobs for teenagers paid $1.00 an hour.

 

[appalichian hunter]

WOW sheriff you were paid well. I remeber bagging wheat for a solid 10 hour day for a widder woman who had a farm up the ways from my home place, she said she would pay me well, Our local Ruritan club put on a Home comming type of faire and she said to me meet her there the next day and she would settle up, Went to the faire met her and she handed me a 10 cent bottle of coca-cola at least she said thanks. Then ask me if she needed anymore work done could she call me.

 

[Uncle Miltie]

My brand-spankin' new Thompson/Center Hawken cost me $195, including tax. I was 15, and made $2.65/ hour in a greenhouse, and that was a lot of money for me.

 

[sheriff john]

McDonald's hamburgers were 15 cents, small bag of fries 12 cents and there was no drive-through nor inside seating. Picked up soda bottles for 2 cents each. Dad only drove on retreaded tires (Kelly Springfields). Total "reloading equipment" was a Lee Loader and a hammer.

 

[Urban Coyote]

I recall hearing people lament how one could have bought a house for the price of a new car "when I was young". My first house, 1988, was $60K, forget the interest rate at just under 10%, we're almost there again today. Well although I haven't shopped recently the word is a 4x4 pickup truck at $60K might just be a good deal. In 1984 I ordered new 4x4 F150 in Hardin MT for $9,700, on a hand shake no less.

As Bob Dylan wrote, and the times they are a changing.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

My first job, I was 15, the ole man had passed, so the boys at the local garage took me in.
I was paid $2.35 mimimun wage, and gas spiked from 26 cents a gallon to 32 cents a gallon.
Still could fill my 53 Chevy for an hours wage.
Now Id have to get paid $125 an hour just to fit that bill.

 

[Louisk]

Looks like you just answered a question I had. I purchased a Pedersoli Brown Bess Carbine a couple of months ago and was checking around for molds in the sizes you just mentioned. The thought occurred to me that I could buy quite a few store bought balls for the cost of getting set up for casting, but looking back on my earlier TOTW order, with the price and shipping of the large balls running north of a buck apiece, , not so much. As you mention, The thought occurs to me: "why couldn't I have bought all this stuff back when it was cheap?"

Of course, it gets complicated trying to figure costs, wages at the time and how affordable things actually were at various times in the past.

How many days pay of the average guy back in the days of flintlocks would a rifle or musket cost?

 

[Packrat]

I worked in a nursery, driving a tractor fpr $.35 a hour, my dad worked at the same place 20 years earlier and got pad $.45

 

[Packrat]

And my firsy house was %15,900

 

[Whitworth]

When I saw some kid walking down the street with his pants falling off I thought to myself "Pull those damn pants up kid". In that moment I realized I had turned into Dad

 

[Justin.44]

When I saw some kid walking down the street with his pants falling off I thought to myself "Pull those damn pants up kid". In that moment I realized I had turned into Dad

There's a gas station near my house that has a great sign regarding those idiots sagging their pants, in fact I just took a pic of it the other day. I love that place, all the employees open carry too so it's the safest one around.

 

[Urban Coyote]

I was about 25 the first time a little kid called me mister, that was an adjustment. About 2 months ago my wife bought me a days of the week pill box, and I'm liking it. It was a bit of a struggle gutting my deer this year, not to mention the elk. My targets at the range appear as a ball of yarn when trying to sight them.

Bottom line, this getting old ain't for sissies.

 

[Timber Wolf]

Shop around for handles, I just bought a three Lee Handle deal on the “bay” for less than $60 shipped. I ain’t swapping handles around. ; )

 

[tenngun]

Looks like you just answered a question I had. I purchased a Pedersoli Brown Bess Carbine a couple of months ago and was checking around for molds in the sizes you just mentioned. The thought occurred to me that I could buy quite a few store bought balls for the cost of getting set up for casting, but looking back on my earlier TOTW order, with the price and shipping of the large balls running north of a buck apiece, , not so much. As you mention, The thought occurs to me: "why couldn't I have bought all this stuff back when it was cheap?"

Of course, it gets complicated trying to figure costs, wages at the time and how affordable things actually were at various times in the past.

How many days pay of the average guy back in the days of flintlocks would a rifle or musket cost?

Lyman sold his guns for twelve to fourteen dollars, a classic Hawken cost about twenty five. A skilled working man, carpenter or barrel maker got around thirty a month. In the ‘old west’ a train engineer was paid four fifty a day and a fireman two fifty.
So in theory it took around two weeks to almost a month to earn a cheap to best rifle.
With prices in the fifteen to five thousand range range today it’s about the same

 

[waarp8nt]

Found this old advertisement when going through my dad's stuff. Imagine what the asking price would be today.

 

[earlwb]

I remember gas at 19.9 cents a gallon when I was a kid. Hamburgers were five for a dollar then too. A new tract home was $19,990 dollars. A new BMW cost $1999 dollars while new American cars were going for as low as $999.99. My first car was a fixer upper Studebaker pickup that I got for $25. My first muzzleloader was a Brazilian made trade gun smoothbore in .40 caliber and it cost like $20 new. $1.00 for a tin of percussion caps if I remember right. Black powder was dirt cheap at the time, I got the lead from wheel weights at the junk yard. I got a Dixie Gun Works iron mold for it. DGW was the only source for most stuff at the time. Their catalogue was my knowledge base for everything back then as we had no internet and no smart phones either. Anyway it made for a great .410 shotgun equivalent. I still have it too.