One of the reason many campaign chests survived wars and colonial life is they were at times packed into other plain chests. These iron-bound and plain shells were painted and simple affairs – and are a fairly rare sight today.
Despite their simplicity and plain construction, they were critical to the mobile household – the cases were stacked and used as a wardrobe for the officer and his family. Note the removable shelf in the illustration above from the Army & Navy Co-operative Society 1885 catalog.
I hope to inspect some of these cases and maybe build a set for my book. They might make a good introductory project – and I really dislike the veneered English Victorian wardrobe we now use for our sheets.
A double victory.
The other interesting thing about these Army & Navy Co-operative Society catalogs is how the lumber world has turned a bit upside down in the last 125 years.
You can buy almost all the wooden furniture in three species: the cheapest is always teak. Getting the item in mahogany is an upcharge. And you have to pay a further upcharge if you want the piece in oak.
— Christopher Schwarz
All the fine oak in England had already been commandeered or used up by the navy by that time to maintain the Empire’s fleet, which is probably why it was expensive. The darn Yanks had declared independence so that left their oak at market rates. The teak and mahogany was pilfered from the colonies, so the cost was only to slay a few of the savage natives and steal it from them.
Isn’t Empire great?
I’m curious as to how the price equates to today’s money. I’ve seen numerous attempts to do this, and the results are always extreme(either too much or too little).
For example, a money converter available from the UK national archives says that 6pounds 6 shillings in 1890 spends like 377 pounds today(well, 2005). If we double that for american dollars, then a teak chest built then would only cost a little over 700 dollars today. Even though markets have changed for materials, that seems awfully cheap. The same website says that those 6pounds 6 shillings would buy 19 days of labor for a craftsman in the building trade(in 1890).
Some people have taken into account the standard of living, the price or gold or silver, the average laborer’s wages vs todays average income etc.
What say you on the value of this chest in today’s money? I’m interested to know your thoughts.
Brandon,
I wish I had a good answer for you, but this sort of economic thing isn’t my specialty. And I’ve not read a satisfying explanation or formula that makes complete sense. I think your tack – comparing day wages with the prices of goods is way better than most.
One criticism I’ve heard of many of these formulas is that there was a point in history where – in general – labor became more expensive in comparison to raw materials. In other words, building a house today likely costs more in labor than in raw materials. It was the reverse in the 19th century. And that example isn’t mine, by the way, just one I’ve read. It might be wrong (so don’t attack that point — it’s just an illustration).
So in the end, I don’t get too worked up about the price of things in the past. It’s a deep rabbit hole and I have drawer bottoms to cut in the shop for my teak campaign chest….
I have found that the most reliable method (for me, at least) of comparing historical prices and values is to relate everything to the price of gold.
Consider that the British Gold Soverign was equivalent to 1 British Pound Sterling. The weight of 1 Gold Sovereign is 0.23542 troy ounces, and that there were 20 shillings to the Pound. A mahogany campaign chest at 6 Pounds, 20 Shillings would be equivalent to 6.3 Gold Sovereigns. At today’s spot price of gold (5/6/2013) of $1,467 the mahogany campaign chest would cost $1,467 times 6.3 or $2,175.
I believe I recall that Chris said he paid about $2000 for the mahogany and brass fittings for the chest he built that was covered in his article that appeared in Popular Woodworking Magazine.
As an additional check on the validity of using gold for price comparisons over the years, consider the automobile. In the mid-1920’s, one could buy a Ford Model A at prices between $500 for the Tudor model and $1200 for the more lavish Town Car model. In 1925, the price of gold was $20.64 per troy ounce. That means the Tudor Model would cost 24.2 ounces of gold and the Town Car model would cost 58.1 ounces of gold. At the current gold price of $1467 per ounce, the Tudor Model would cost $35,501 and the Town Car model would cost $85, 232.
The Ford Model T in 1925 cost $260. Using this gold comparison model, the current price equivalent for the Model T would be $18, 484.
Automobile prices ranging between $18, 484 and $85, 232 today appear to be quite reasonably accurate, so I believe using the price of gold for historical comparisons is as accurate a method I have found.
The problem with that model is that in the 19th Century, the there was a fixed exchange rate of gold coins to the currency of the time in the UK, i.e. a gold standard. Gold is now freely traded as a commodity, so the price is not fixed. So you’re really comparing apples to oranges.
Had you done the same calculation just 10 years ago, you would have come up with an answer only 1/4 as much, which would not correlate well at all to the price of things at that time. Yes, the price of gold has quadrupled in 10 years but other prices (and surely wages) have not.
As was noted by edhresko, gold is now a commodity (subject to great speculation and manipulation by very large traders) so it has nothing to do with the price of bananas and using it to derive a ‘reasonable’ range of current prices is only coincidental.
Let’s face it, there can be no real calculation as both money, commodity prices and wages and the relationship between them have all changed dramatically over the last 100+ years. Some materials were simply more abundant then (and therefore less expensive) than now. As I mentioned earlier, it likely had more to do with politics than economics.
Correction.
The calculation for the price of the mahogany chest should be 6.3 Gold Sovereigns times 0.23542 ounces per Sovereign or 1.483146 ounces of gold. This 1.483146 ounces of gold times today’s spot price of $1,467 equals the total cost of $2175.
While I got the final cost right, by trying to type too fast in my previous post, I left out the intermediate step of calculating the number of ounces of the Gold Sovereigns.
10 years ago, I bought mahogany at about 1/4 the price my hardwood supplier now charges me. It is our money (whether in British Pounds or American Dollars) that is declining in value because of an increase in supply by governments that believe they have the power to repeal or ignore the law of supply and demand. I believe that if we calculated how many oranges (or apples) that could be purchased for the price of a mahogany campaign chest back in 1850, the number would be fairly close to how many oranges (or apples) that could be purchased for the price of a mahogany campaign chest today.
There would probably be some variance due to the fact that there are more alternative substitutes for the wood that was used back then (e.g. plywood, aluminum, steel, plastic) and there are probably some people who would buy a plywood or aluminum chest because of a lower price (heresy!!!) (They didn’t have Wal-mart or Ikea back then!) Also, the woodworking (carpenters’) tool chests I saw when I was in the army in the 1960’s were made of plywood (as were the footlockers in common use at the time.)
That’s just silly. Nowhere in the developed world has there been 25% annual inflation in the last ten years (which is what it would take for the price of commodities to quadruple during that time). The price of mahogany is increasing faster than inflation because there just isn’t all that much left.
And your apples/oranges example is flawed as well, as the relative scarcity of the two has varied considerably over the years. In North America during the early to middle 19th century, for example, apples were already common but oranges were still exotic. Another similar example of the fluctuation in relative cost: My wife was recently reading a cookbook written in the early part of the 20th century. One of the recipes calls for chicken, but the author notes that beef or lamb could be substituted if chicken were unavailable or too expensive.
-Steve
How about comparing the price of a campaign chest to the annual pay of a British Army Lieutenant.
In 1854, the annual pay of a Lieutenant in the Dragoons or Foot Guards was paid approximately 71 British Pounds annually. A mahogany campaign chest at 6Pounds 6Shillings (6.3 Pounds) would therefore cost such an officer 1/11 of his annual pay.
In 2012-2013, a British Army Lieutenant is paid between 15,823 GBP (Entry level 1) and 32,702 GBP (most experienced level 10). If we take the average of these two extremes in the pay scale we get an average pay of 24,262. If a present day lieutenant paid 1/11 of is annual pay for a campaign chest, he would pay $2,205 British Pounds.
There is one more wrinkle here. The British lieutenant in 1854 had to pay approximately 1,200 pounds to purchase his rank. The buying and selling of officers’ rank in the British Army was abolished in 1871.