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Rocky

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Mike has a great thread on "gas prices" and in some of the responses people have mentioned gas prices from years ago. It is amusing to me to remember pricing for other items of years ago (Of course, a working man with a family making $100 a week, was "doing well.") so I am suggesting that we remember pricing from earlier times. I will start with a few that I remember:

Gas prices: Regular was 26 cents, hi-test was 32 cents and super hi-test (like golden Esso extra) was 38 cents when I started driving in 1958.
Cigarettes: The earliest I remember was in the late 1940's when we were in Arkansas (my father had a cheese company there although we lived in Pittsburgh) was 12 cents in a machine. You would put 15 cents in the machine and there were three pennies on the side of the pack inside the cellophane. We used to buy them for the guys in jail who would throw us 15 cents through the bars, we would go to the general store which had a cigarette machine on the sidewalk, buy the cigarettes, get the 3 cents for our trouble and toss the cigarettes through the bars to the inmates. This was in Jasper, Arkansas.
Food: I don't remember a lot of individual pricing but I do remember when we went to the A&P with our Mom and we checked out, sometimes with two baskets, the total would be something in the high $20 like $28.75. When the cashier said the total, people would turn and look. My Mom used to say she felt like the "old woman who lived in a shoe." Some prices I do recall were fish at 19 to 25 cents a pound, ground meat was 59 cents a pound, a good steak was 79 cents a pound, bread was 19 cents (my Father's family had a bakery and he used to deliver bread for 2 cents a loaf in the 1920's!), butter was 29 cents, margarine was 19 cents.
Cars: My first car was a 1958 Impala convertible, 3 two's on a 348 block, 3 on the tree and listed for $3875. I think we paid something like $2800 for it, cash, no trade.
Houses: Our home, built in 1939 was a 3 bedroom, one bath, all brick with covered porch, full basement, living room, dining room, kitchen and breakfast nook in a nice suburb of Pittsburgh and cost $8900. I recall going to my father's house years later and he was sitting on the side porch (which had been added when the covered porch was converted to a TV room) and he was staring at his new car, a 1980 something Buick and he said to me, "(do) You know, that car cost more than this house."
Restaurants: When I first took a date to a restaurant and the check was $15 for the two of us, I felt like "a big spender from the East" as they used to say in the cowboy movies.
Movies: Saturday, two features, two shorts and 17 cartoons for 20 cents then an ice cream cone for 5 cents after the show.
Minimum wage: The first one I remember was $1 per hour and the first one I ever worked under was $1.50 per hour at a garden center when I was in High School in 1958.

All of these prices are from the 1940's to the 1960's. I always had a job from delivering papers (1.25 cents for a daily and 2.5 cents for a Sunday) in 5th grade to caddying at Churchill Valley Country Club, to working at a garden center, beer distributors (underage), florists, construction, etc. I remember that it was good to have money in your pocket and not be dependent or beholding to anyone for it. My best pre-professional jobs were caddying (2 dollars per bag for 18 holes plus tip! I could sometimes get out twice a day and make as much as $14! This compared well to slugging along with newspapers for a week and making maybe $7.) and construction (my first union job in the early 1960's during Summer between college terms when I made $3.56 per hour, double over time and triple time on Sundays. I was working on the construction of Northway Mall which was scheduled to open something like September 1, 1962 but was way behind in progress. We could literally work as much as we wanted to and the overtime pay was super. I was young and strong and would work as much as 12 hour days Monday through Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday so my gross pay sometimes exceeded $450 per week. I seriously considered staying out of school for a quarter to continue working but my father would not permit it.)

What else do some of you "old codgers" remember?
 
My first real job was in a greenhouse, $1.85 an hour in 1975. I also worked at a local dairy Queen knock off for $1.15, but they got busted for paying less than minimum wage ($1.55 I think) and got a HUGE check of nearly $75 back pay.

I went to machinist school and graduated in 1981 and my starting pay in the Homestead Mill was $8.72 an hour. I felt like the richest guy in the world for a few weeks.

Remember when you had to double the price on the gas pumps because they didnt have a spot for the dollar, just the cents?

How about switching license plates to buy gas on the odd or even date?
 
I bought gas for the lawnmower as a young kid in the late '60s for 25 cents a gallon. It was a 2-gallon can, so 50 cents.

I worked pumping gas at 65 cents a gallon during the oil embargo of the '70s and people griped about it then - while they sat in their cars and I did full service for them! Oh yes, wash windshield, check oil, check tires. No extra charge. Heck, today you are lucky if there's anything even out there to wash your own glass with.

Earliest memory of cig prices was 25 cents a pack. Dad would have me pick him up a pack of Salem when I walked to the gas station for lawnmower gas. Ha, try having an 8-year-old kid do that for you today!

I recall that when I took up the habit as a teenager, a carton of Winston set me back $2.99. After eventually giving it up in the late '90s, I am shocked now to see a carton advertised as a deal at $45.99 - and I live in one of the cheaper cig price states, I understand.

I recall buying Snickers bars that were a full six inches or more long for a dime each.

And yes, $25 a week fed a family of four in the '60s. Plus, you got A&P stamps to save to buy other stuff with. Plus the occasional in-store promotion. I have a complete set of Jewel Tea dinnerware and all the extras that my grandmother collected. And the bag boy carried your stuff to the car.

I worked for $1.65/hour in my first job, in 1974. That's $8.67 now.

Using an online inflation tool and a calculator, I compared my current salary to the one I was making in 1988. Although my salary figure appears much higher now, I actually have 53% less buying power than I had back then.

More interesting figures:

In 1979, an average assembly line job paid $25 an hour. That's $81 an hour in today's money.

The average assembly line worker today earns $11.87 an hour. That's just $3.45 an hour in 1979 dollars.

The federal minimum wage in 1979 was $2.90 (that's $9.98 in today's dollars).

A $10 federal minimum wage (if we had that today) would equal $2.90 in 1979, which was the minimum wage then.

That means people making a federal minimum wage of $7.25 today are making $2.03 in 1979 dollars.

Time has gone by, prices are up, wages are down. And people wonder why they don't have any money. :)
 
Great stuff, Guys. Thanks.

DoctorCAD, never thought of switching license plate during the gas crisis. Clever! I worked at Carey Furnace in the Summers of '68 & '69 while I was in college. (For those of you doing the math, I went to Georgia Tech in 1960 after High School and did remarkably poorly for about two and a half years. I dropped out on probation and bummed around for about a year before enlisting in the Army. While in the Army, Bev and I were married and when I returned in 1967 I entered Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. I was a tad better focused having matured quite a bit in the service and with our first child on the way. I graduated in 3 years, having started with only advanced credit for ROTC, with a BS in Math & Physics. Funny how some responsibility makes you work!) Anyway, I was common labor at Carey Furnace and I could not believe the amount of work in a blast furnace facility. Because I was older, I got most of the crap jobs while the younger, less mature guys got the good stuff. There was a bar across the street from the facility that had to be the busiest place in Pittsburgh on shift changes. Sixteen ounce Duquesne, Schmidts or Iron City were $.50 and the bar was lined with them when we walked in. We would throw a buck at the bartender and down 2 of the beers like they were water, we were so dehydrated. I remember Bev saying to me after my first week on the job, "Well, Honey, how do you like your job?" and I said, "I would get a gun and rob candy stores before I would do this for the rest of my life." I have complete admiration for those who did the work. They were amazing people, worked their butts off. We poured twice a shift and you would get your shovel from a guy on the outgoing shift and hand it to a guy on the incoming shift. In between, you worked like crazy. Oh, and the pay, $2.98 per hour.

Jswordy, My brother and I used to cut grass for some of our neighbors for $.50 cents with a push lawn mower, 50 foot lots about 100 feet deep, including removing the clippings and trimming. One neighbor had a triple lot and paid us $2.50 because the house was on one lot and the other two, on either side of the house were all grass. Shoveling driveways in winter was a good job, too.

JohnT, I remember the penny candy. That is what we did with the three pennies that we got from the inmates in Arkansas!

A couple of other prices came to mind from all your entries. Grapes (and I have said this before, were $.75 per 42 pound box in the late 1940's. The last time I made wine in Pittsburgh from grapes, I think we paid $5.60 for a 36 pound box. In the Army, cigarettes were $1.10 per carton for non-filters and $1.20 per carton for filters. But the best deal was the Class VI Store (i.e. the liquor store). The most expensive bottle in the store was Hennessey Bras Arme' Cognac for $3.75. Jack Daniels Black was $2.00, Seagram's VO was $1.50 and you could buy A-squared (Ancient Age) for $.75. I could buy 5 bottles a month and so could my wife. Cigarettes and liquor made for some really good bartering materials with the locals.
 
My first job, in 1971, at a plywood factory here in downtown Fayetteville, NC paid me $1.65 an hour. And I really worked hard for that money but I thought I was rich. Hay Street was wide open in those days. So many bars that you couldn't make it down both sides of the street.

And I still remember when there was nothing there.

Beano Joe
 
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My most distinct pricing memory was from about 1972. I was a freshman in high school, my dad decided it was time to buy a new car, I renege him saying, "I'm not going to buy a car, if I have to pay more than $3000." and he didn't, ended up with a Buick Skylark, that eventually became my car when I got married 8 years later. I traded it for something else in 1981, with almost 155,000 miles on it.
 
Rocky, I did the same. I think it was 1974-75 summers (seventh and eight grade), cutting grass for like $3 a yard. I strung together a whole line of yards in a neighborhood so I could cut them all at once. I recall buying my very first record album with $3.49 of that money - "The best of the Guess Who" - and I still have it.

My favorite memories are of the two high school aged sisters who'd always come out to sunbathe in bikinis whenever I cut the grass. They would always call me over to sit with them and talk. Ahem, but that's another story.... :)
 
Remember when Cartoons came on Saturday mornings and you sat in your underwear eating cereal for the first few hours of your day?

No more cartoons on network TV at least. Makes me sad that my kids won't get that experience. It was universal. The kids in the neighborhood would come streaming outside the second Xmen finished to emulate our new moves.
 
Remember when Cartoons came on Saturday mornings and you sat in your underwear eating cereal for the first few hours of your day?

No more cartoons on network TV at least. Makes me sad that my kids won't get that experience. It was universal. The kids in the neighborhood would come streaming outside the second Xmen finished to emulate our new moves.

Yup, To think that these poor kids today will never get to see what happens to a coyote when an anvil lands on its head!!! Such a shame....
 
remember-when-

This was was inspired by Rocky but anyone else can answer it. What did it cost to get a ticket to a baseball game and how much were the hot dogs as you can remember it?

I my case, i became a Dodger fan when they came to Los Angeles when it cost about $ 3.00 for the bleachers and a 1.00 for a Dodger Dog. That was about 1960 for me.

PS: Rocky, i read you were a Pirates fan so the 1960 world series must bring back some memories.


Respectfully,
corinth
 
This poster hangs in my office to remind me of my early teen years working summers at my "uncle Tony's" Crescent Market and Grocery. He owned the meat/fish market. It was awful and I loved-hated it. I learned so much about work, business, people, and foul odors. This was the mid to late 60's. The store was on "the other side of the tracks", old and not air-conditioned except for the meat cooler and freezer, I spend lots of time hiding in the cooler. It was a million dollar experience that I wouldn't give you a dime for. Just kidding, I learned more those summers than I have most of the rest of my life. Check out the prices on the poster. Btw the Seaport 49 cents per pound was a coffee company we owned also.

crescent market poster.jpg
 
if we collected 8 Town Talk Bread wrappers, we could get into a Pirate game for free at a brand new Three Rivers Stadium in 1972 (opened in 71, but it was still brand new to us).

I remember my first Penguin hockey game at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena and sitting in section B for $8 per ticket. We went for my birthday with friends.
 
if we collected 8 Town Talk Bread wrappers, we could get into a Pirate game for free at a brand new Three Rivers Stadium in 1972 (opened in 71, but it was still brand new to us).

Cool! I remember each year there was a day that they would let crossing guards ("safeties," in the parlance) into the Phillies game for free. That is right, back when children served as crossing guards! You had to wear your safety belt to get in -- a ridiculous white or orange thing that was a belt + a diagonal sash over your shoulder. There was also a day you could get in if you had a certain number of A's on your report card.

My parents took me to my first pro game when Veteran's Stadium opened in 1971. It was really cool to see the new ballpark; however, with an adult's perspective, I really wish they had taken me to see a game the year before, so I could have seen Connie Mack Stadium (AKA Shibe Park). Moreover, my father grew up in the (crappy) neighborhood just across the street from that stadium. Oh well.
 
Remember when: You got carded for wine?

I bought a bottle for tonight and they asked to see my ID. I had my son with me.

What?
 
I was paging through the forum this morning and I found this thread that I started in October 2014. Reading through it, I was amused at our perspectives in 2014 compared to what we are seeing today in wages, prices and amenities. If you have some time to spare, I suggest read through it and see how our 2014 views would be better, worse or the same today.
 

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