email hidden said:Quoted message said:On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:52:54 -0800 (PST), "[email hidden]"
Quoted message said:On Nov 18, 2:23 pm, [email hidden] wrote:
> Here's the first photograph I've found (as opposed to drawings) of a
> rider actually using the coasting pegs on the fork of an early
> fixed-gear safety bicycle:
Quoted message said:>http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S=arc/pre1920/1890%27s+man+on+bike...
Quoted message said:> Nice costume. The position of the coasting pegs must make it hard to
> tuck in. The cross frame, as they were known, shows that it was a very
> early safety, probably pre-1890.
Quoted message said:> I'd love to find a contemporary picture of someone using the rare
> coasting pegs on a highwheeler:
Quoted message said:> http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/17706/wm/pd781040.jpg
Quoted message said:> Few highwheelers came with coasting pegs built onto the frame. Flding
> coasting pegs for the front fork could be added for one shilling,
> six-pence in 1879:
Quoted message said:>http://books.google.com/books?id=wYg3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=%...
Quoted message said:> But most high-wheel riders just hung their legs over the handlebar
> when coasting.
Quoted message said:> Cheers,
Quoted message said:> Carl Fogel
Quoted message said:Hi, Carl, since I am a former Brit, I had a little chuckle when I
read, "one shilling, six-pence"
(probably a princely sum in 1879).
Quoted message said:This is what it actually is but, in the local vernacular, it would
probably have been expressed as 'one and six', or 18 pence.
Quoted message said:A shilling was often called a 'bob' and sixpence was a 'tanner'.
Quoted message said:Hope this didn't bore you. :-)
Quoted message said:Kind regards.
Quoted message said:Lewis
Dear Lewis,
Yes, "one and six" sounds more familiar.
It's hard to say what prices meant back then. High-wheeler bicycles
were expensive toys, but people would sacrifice to have them if they
really wanted them, just as some teen-agers today will scrimp and save
for the expensive gaming computer that may cost ten times what my
medical clients buy for their clerks.
If you look at the rest of the ad, a lamp that hung from the
highwheeler's front hub cost five and six, almost four times as much
as the folding front footpegs, while "best pigskin saddles" cost only
three shillings:
http://books.google.com/books?id=wYg3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190&dq=%...
It's on page 190--I seem to have somehow pasted the link to page 198.
A whole "tapered backbone," roughly the equivalent of a safety bicycle
frame with no fork, was only three shillings, but then it was pretty
much just a curved piece of tapering pipe with some mounting studs for
the front and rear forks and the big leaf spring for the saddle.
"Bent steel backbones" cost more than twice as much, 7 shillings, just
as more exotic frames cost more today.
Cheap V-rims for highwheelers were only 3 & 6, while the improved U
rims were 5 & 6. It was apparently just a little too early for the
hollow crescent rims.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Thanks, Carl, that catalog makes an interesting read.
It may put a perspective on the value of money if I tell you that when
I began my apprenticeship, in 1956, I was earning 3 pounds/week (that
would be 60 shillings). I don't remember exactly what a journeyman
earned but I do remember that I took a whole days pay for a journeyman
to buy a carton of cigarettes.
Hope you are having a great day.
Lewis
Dear Lewis,
Inflation is always tricky to compare for long periods and individual
items.
Regional variation alone makes it difficult.
About three dollars today buys about the same amount of gasoline
throughout the U.S., with much of the variation being due to different
state taxes. In the U.K., the same three dollars converted into pounds
would buy far less gasoline, partly due to fluctuating exchange rates,
but mostly due to much higher taxes.
The same three dollars buy far more of almost everything else in
Pueblo, Colorado, than in New York City, where the cost of living is
much higher--but average income is much higher in NYC, and it's a
different world.
In Pueblo, there's a car for just about every person eligible for a
driver's license. In NYC, lots of people have no cars because parking
is so expensive, traffic is so crowded, shops are so dense, and public
transportation is so available.
But for fun you can use inflation calculators like these:
http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/
In 1879, your 3-pounds-per-week in 1956 was worth about
12 pounds using retail price price index
16 pounds using gross domestic product one way
33 pounds using average earnings
37 pounds using per capita GDP (another way)
55 pounds using GDP yet another way
Anywhere from 12 to 55 pounds!
In the UK back in 1956 as an apprentice, you made 3 pounds per week
and recall that a presumably higher-paid journeyman had to spend a
whole day's pay for a carton of cigarettes.
In Texas, where you live now, an 8 hour day at a minimum wage of $5.85
is $46.80.
Guess what a carton of ten 20-cigarette packs costs, judging by the
final retail price column for a single pack here:
http://tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0207.pdf
About $47.71, awfully close to a day's pay for the equivalent of an
apprentice. So the equivalent of a journeyman is doing a bit better in
terms of a drug that's no longer as popular.
Of course, you couldn't buy the computer that you're reading this on
at any price in 1879 or 1956, and you'd have to have been awfully
wealthy to have air-conditioning in Texas back in 1956.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
