Price of Amber Stems in 1901

[simong]

Pipes & Tobacco by J.W. Cundall, a great little booklet on our hobby. Reprinted from the 1901 original & available from smokingpipes.com.

A fun little read & inside are a few old adverts from back in the day.
One that caught my eye was this one, advertising ‘ The most popular pipe ever made’ from Allen & Wright on Piccadilly.

What struck me was the cost of having an amber stem.
3/6 for the standard pipe or 11/6 if you wanted an amber stem. 12/6 (an extra shilling) if you wanted a case. That’s an ‘astronomical’ 8 shillings extra, just for the amber stem!

It’s difficult to put it into today’s money. Not only with inflation but also when they ‘devalued’ the pound, a couple of times in the last century. In 1901 12 shillings would have been a decent weekly wage for a lot of people. So, a weeks wage for a pipe…..most of which was the cost of the amber stem!

Might not be of much interest to the forum, but I found it surprising.
Another advert…….a book ‘everybody’ was talking about (in hushed tones, I’d imagine).
Interested in Harems?……….5 shillings sir! (half a weeks wage lol).

 

[AJL67]

A pound from 1901 is little over 155 pounds today.

​

1901 British Pound to US Dollar or convert 1901 GBP to USD

Convert 1901 British Pound to US Dollar or how much is 1901 GBP in USD with currency history chart GBP vs USD and international currency exchange rates powered by Mconvert

gbp.mconvert.net

 

[OverMountain]

That is astronomical. And beyond the workman’s wages.

 

[kcghost]

I ran it and got about $2400 in US dollars. Must have made a mistake.

 

[condorlover1]

@kcghost : Inflation dear boy! When you realize that a $100 Confederate States of America bill, a note issued by a country that no longer exists has greater value than a government issued U.S $100 bill that won the war you then can appreciate how far our currency has been watered down. I can hardly wait for the electronic whizzy E-$ then we will really see debasement on an industrial scale!

 

[AJL67]

I ran it and got about $2400 in US dollars. Must have made a mistake.

There's a chart further down the page, the first numbers I ran were high too, but it was converting the amount 1902 Pounds not the value in that year, then i found the chart way down the bottom with the numbers from 1901 / 1902

 

[greeneyes]

According to the converter at the National Archives 12/6 would've been equivalent to £49 ($62.30 USD) at 2017 valuation. Day's wage it says, give or take.

Currency converter: 1270–2017

Try our online currency converter and find out how many animals, stones of wool and quarters of wheat you can buy, and how much you could earn.

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Another converter gives a slightly higher estimate, but in the same range at $80 USD.

British Money Circa 1900

Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum

amblesideonline.org

 

[simong]

A pound from 1901 is little over 155 pounds today.

​

1901 British Pound to US Dollar or convert 1901 GBP to USD

Convert 1901 British Pound to US Dollar or how much is 1901 GBP in USD with currency history chart GBP vs USD and international currency exchange rates powered by Mconvert

gbp.mconvert.net

According to the converter at the National Archives 12/6 would've been equivalent to £49 ($62.30 USD) at 2017 valuation. Day's wage it says, give or take.

Currency converter: 1270–2017

Try our online currency converter and find out how many animals, stones of wool and quarters of wheat you can buy, and how much you could earn.

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Another converter gives a slightly higher estimate, but in the same range at $80 USD.

British Money Circa 1900

Charlotte Mason homeschool curriculum

amblesideonline.org

Yes but no.
The trouble with using those converters is they don’t take into account the ‘devaluation’ of sterling. Hard to believe now but in the last century the pound sterling was ‘too strong’ & governments had to devalue the pound, in order to compete in the world’s markets. @condorlover1 will know better than myself, but I think as late as the 70’s Harold Wilson devalued the pound for the last time.

To put it into context, in 1901 a pound a week was a ‘white collar’ workers wage. Today’s equivalent of £155 a week is not even a ‘blue collar’s’ wage. You can earn £155 working a two day shift at McDonalds.

 

[condorlover1]

£5 a week was considered a very good wage. Local parsons ('Vicars') made about £350 a year and lived in those huge houses provided by the church along with the odd servant. By all accounts some wrote some very turgid books on religion that were best sellers in the 1870s so life for these guys was very good. A lot of books on flowers and fauna were written by parsons since they had loads of time on their hands. I was told by my Father that his grand Father who was born in the 1850s and died before I was born use to go a public house in the early 1880s and for 2 old pennies you could get some bread and cheese and a pipe of tobacco. Somehow I don't think they had the equivalent of the Big Mac Index to compute valuations!

 

[greeneyes]

I feel we're on the verge of an "amber-stemmed pipe-to-Big Mac™" conversion factor that can account for inflation, devaluation and currency exchange rates.

Here I've found an account of what a working class family will have paid for various expenses in 1901 London. About three-quarters down there is a ledger with weekly and annual expenses for various items and rent.

As above, 5/6 (~5/5) for Silver Mounted Pipe w/ Rubber Stem and Morocco Case will have been a working class family's meat rations for the week. The Amber Stemmed Mounted Pipe with Case would have cost more than the family's weekly rent and meat rations or, rent being a shilling a day, nearly two-weeks rent.

Living hand-to-mouth you can see how this might not have been an accessible luxury without bringing some considerable sacrifice to a family's other pressing expenses, but when you look further down at the expenses of a lower middle-class family such purchases begin to appear somewhat more feasible.

 

[condorlover1]

Thats why the drebs smoked clay pipes!

 

[AJL67]

I feel we're on the verge of an "amber-stemmed pipe-to-Big Mac™" conversion factor that can account for inflation, devaluation and currency exchange rates.

Here I've found an account of what a working class family will have paid for various expenses in 1901 London. About three-quarters down there is a ledger with weekly and annual expenses for various items and rent.

As above, 5/6 (~5/5) for Silver Mounted Pipe w/ Rubber Stem and Morocco Case will have been a working class family's meat rations for the week. The Amber Stemmed Mounted Pipe with Case would have cost more than the family's weekly rent and meat rations or, rent being a shilling a day, nearly two-weeks rent.

Living hand-to-mouth you can see how this might not have been an accessible luxury without bringing some considerable sacrifice to a family's other pressing expenses, but when you look further down at the expenses of a lower middle-class family such purchases begin to appear somewhat more feasible.

Or being single with a 2 bedroom apt for the win, oh in their case single and a small flat.

 

[simong]

I feel we're on the verge of an "amber-stemmed pipe-to-Big Mac™" conversion factor that can account for inflation, devaluation and currency exchange rates.

Here I've found an account of what a working class family will have paid for various expenses in 1901 London. About three-quarters down there is a ledger with weekly and annual expenses for various items and rent.

As above, 5/6 (~5/5) for Silver Mounted Pipe w/ Rubber Stem and Morocco Case will have been a working class family's meat rations for the week. The Amber Stemmed Mounted Pipe with Case would have cost more than the family's weekly rent and meat rations or, rent being a shilling a day, nearly two-weeks rent.

Living hand-to-mouth you can see how this might not have been an accessible luxury without bringing some considerable sacrifice to a family's other pressing expenses, but when you look further down at the expenses of a lower middle-class family such purchases begin to appear somewhat more feasible.

Good stuff!
Interesting bit of social history/economics. I find it fascinating myself, looking at how different the cost & quality of life was, back in Victorian/Edwardian times.

Not a fan of the ‘Big Mac’ conversion?
Let’s try & equate it a different way, via another gentlemen’s vice, a pint of British beer.
A pint in a London pub today, will cost on average £5.
In 1901 a pint of beer in a London pub, would cost you tuppence.
So, the standard pipe would cost you 3/6 or 21 pints of beer. £105 for the standard pipe sounds about right in today’s money.
The amber stem, cased pipe costs 12/6 or 75 pints of beer. £375 today.
The difference of 9/(shillings) for the amber stem & case runs at 54 pints. A whopping £270!

 

[condorlover1]

@simong that's about right. If you think about it the value of money has really shrunk in terms of purchasing power. Even in my life time the value of cash has fallen dramatically.

 

[simong]

@simong that's about right. If you think about it the value of money has really shrunk in terms of purchasing power. Even in my life time the value of cash has fallen dramatically.

It has & continues to do so. According to today’s mail, the average price of a pint in London is now £6.50, not £5, which I only typed in this morning.
According to my late grandfather, things started to ‘go downhill’ after they gave women the vote.

 

[bluegrassbrian]

Pipes & Tobacco by J.W. Cundall, a great little booklet on our hobby. Reprinted from the 1901 original & available from smokingpipes.com.

A fun little read & inside are a few old adverts from back in the day.
One that caught my eye was this one, advertising ‘ The most popular pipe ever made’ from Allen & Wright on Piccadilly.
View attachment 230379
What struck me was the cost of having an amber stem.
3/6 for the standard pipe or 11/6 if you wanted an amber stem. 12/6 (an extra shilling) if you wanted a case. That’s an ‘astronomical’ 8 shillings extra, just for the amber stem!

It’s difficult to put it into today’s money. Not only with inflation but also when they ‘devalued’ the pound, a couple of times in the last century. In 1901 12 shillings would have been a decent weekly wage for a lot of people. So, a weeks wage for a pipe…..most of which was the cost of the amber stem!

Might not be of much interest to the forum, but I found it surprising.
Another advert…….a book ‘everybody’ was talking about (in hushed tones, I’d imagine).
Interested in Harems?……….5 shillings sir! (half a weeks wage lol).
View attachment 230381

Had a moment of odd "Deja Vu" when I realized I was smoking an Allen & Wright pipe while reading this.