The Word Cloud

Somewhere on this site, someone (possibly EmmaD) posted a link to a site that was useful for researching things like what things cost 50 or 100 years ago. Does that ring a bell with anyone? I'd be really grateful if someone knows the link and could re-post.

Hi Secrets, I thought I'd kept a note of that site, but it seems not. I've found a very useful one called dMaire Time Capsule here: http://dmarie.com/timecap/
It has lots of useful data relating to any year, but the prices are in dollars and presumably relate to USA.

If you google 'How much did things cost in Britain' you'll find a number of specific years mentioned , which may help, but not an all-purpose one like dMaire Time Capsule.

Thanks for that, Tony - I have been googling around and came across an article that said cigarettes were 25p for 20 in 1960. That's 5 shillings, isn't it - that seems quite a lot to me - then again, the article was from the Daily Mail...

I've never smoked, but 5/- was probably about right. There were cheap fags and more expensive ones. Wild Woodbine and Will's Whiffs were the cheapest I think (with no filter tips) and maybe they were 3/6 or 4 bob. Players and filter cigarettes, generally, would have been more expemsive.

You are a mine of useful information!

I can't believe that cigarettes cost as much as 5 shillings for 20 in 1960.

I can remember a large loaf of sliced white bread cost 9d-10d in the mid-sixties = 4p in today's money. I used to get 1 shilling pocket money = 5p. And my first Saturday job washing hair in the hairdressers earned me £1.50 a day. Tips were often 2p or 5p. It lasted all week and I could save - it was Thursday before I broke into the pound.
Oh, the shame of being able to remember.

Back in 1971 I worked in a pub. Beer was 3s 2d a pint. Then we went decimal and within months it was 32p a pint which was the equivalent of 6s 4d, so it had doubled in price.

In 1971 I had a summer job as a bus conductor. Decimalisation meant that all bus fares went up, too, because of all my miscalculations. Yes, it was a head job in those days.

I was born in 1971, my Mum found her cost of living rocketed!

Thanks for all the reminiscences. I have a lousy memory for how much things cost, although I am sure the first single I bought was 45p, but I could be confusing rpms and ps there...

Do you know, records were indeed that - my first one (David Cassidy, Could it be Forever / Cherish) was 50p.

I'm afraid mine was Slade...

Sometime in the sixties a pound would buy eight pints of light and bitter at two shillings and sixpence each(London prices) , or three 45rpm singles at six shillings and eightpence each. "The past is a foreign currency."

Brilliant...a 60s expert...what would you say about a tin of biscuits, two jars of fish paste and two packets of pipe tobacco for nine (shillings) and seven-pence ha'penny? Too much, too little? It's 1962.

Much too much I'd have thought. My prices were circa '67

Thanks - glad to know you weren't buying tobacco in 1962...

Kid, you was robbed - in the early 60s we got records for 6/7! Iced lollies were 2d; later you could get specially big ones for 3d. Ice-cream cones were 4d and 6d. A 6d cone with a milkflake was 9d - and hence called a 99.