How much did they cost?

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smellie

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Just wondering how much our toys actually cost when they were brand-new.

Any information regarded with gratitude.

I know that the WW2 contract price for a Savage Number 4 was US$60. Gold was US$35 a Troy ounce.

Original projected price on the M-1 Garand rifle was US$65, but they got it down to $26 a unit. Gold was $35.

Contract price on the 1910 Ross was $28 a rifle, that was for the 500 Newfoundland Rosses. Gold was $20 an ounce. Bayonets were an extra $5.50 and cleaning sticks, which would have obviated much of the controversy, were 5 cents, except that the Gummint refused to spend the nickels.

I am told that they got the Mark II Sten down to C$12 a unit during the Second War, Canadian production, and have been told that the Mark III was down to $4.98. Gold was US$35 an ounce and the C$ was about $1.10US.

Adolf Frank lists the 1908 Braziliam mauser at RM109, if I remember correctly, the RM at 4.1 to the US$ and gold at $20.

WWI price for the SMLE was 5 pounds 5 shillings, I believe. The pound was C$4.96 and gold was $20.

Any more?

How about the Kar98k?

There's a question!

When you figure the costs on some of them, we're really getting good deals, even at today's prices.
 
In 1914, the price of the Ross Mark II** was a whopping $50.00, close to $1000.00 in today's dollars.

The price of the military Ross 1912 cadet to the public was $14.00, or about $300.00 in today's money.

Catalogue3sm.jpg
 
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Cool. I'm teaching a unit on WW1 trench life this week, and I'd planned to include some info like this. Anyone know what a pint of beer, a plate of chips, and a London hooker cost during the Great War?
 
Found some interesting links:
Wages and Prices:
It's hard for us today to understand the impact of price and wage inflation during WW I. Prices had scarcely increaed since the 1850's, in some cases actually having fallen. In four years of war, they doubled.

Wages
Pre-war: " the average weekly wage varied from 26s. 4d. per week to 34s. 4d. Half the women employed were paid from 10s. to 15s. per week."
1917: London bus drivers were earning 60s. per week, even the cleaners were getting 40s.
1918: Even agricultural labourers, the lowest paid manual workers, were earning 60s. to 70s. a week.
Munitions workers earned considerably more - from £6 (120s.) to as much as £10 (200s.) or £20 (400s.) per week.
Money:
For those of you unused to pre-decimal currenct
d. = penny
s. = shilling
12 pence (pennies) = 1 shilling = 5p (modern money)
20 shillngs = £1

The new scale of prices as fixed by the Licensed Victuallers' Central Protection Society of London is:

half pint Glass
Mild ale 3.5d. -
Bitter 5d. 4d.
Stout 5d. 5d.
Burton 6d. 5d.
Mild and Bitter 4.5d. 3.5d .
Stout and Mild 5d. 4d.
Mild and Burton 5d. 4d.

Other prices: Small Bass 7d.; Guinness 8d.; London stout (screws) 5d.; pale ale (screws) 5d.; barley wine nips 6d.; lager, light or dark, 8d.


Measures:
lb = pound = 454 grams
barrel = 36 UK gallons = 163.7 litres
gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 4.546 litres
Click to expand...
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/beer1917.htm
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/beer1917.htm#yesterday
 
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I read somewhere that the US gov. pays something like $550 for their M16's/M4's and the like...
And we're all paying $1500 :D
 
Found a little more:
When war was declared in August, 1914, Vickers were manufacturing 12 machine guns a week. Demand from the British Army was so high that Vickers had to find new ways of increasing production. By 1915 Vickers supplied the British armed forces with 2,405 guns. These increases continued throughout the First World War: 7,429 (1916); 21,782 (1917) and 39,473 (1918). The Vickers Company was accused of profiteering when in the early stages of the war they charged the Home Office £175 per gun. Under pressure from the government, Vickers reduced the price to £80 per gun.
Click to expand...
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWvickers.htm
* The Lewis gun was cheap at around ?15 compared with ?80 for the Vickers.
* Six Lewis guns could be factory-assembled in the time it took to make a Vickers heavy machine gun.
* The Lewis gun consisted of a total 62 easily manufactured parts whilst the basic Vickers had 28 detailed, mainly multi-part, components.
* The Lewis Gun used much less ammunition than the Vickers did as, ideally, it was fired in short aimed bursts.
Click to expand...
http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/land-war/weapons-equipment-uniform/269-lewis-story-gun.html
 
Lee Enfield said:
Using the gold comparison the Ross MkII** would be much closer to $1700 than $1000
Click to expand...

Money / time translations, I have the feeling, are not an exact science. Until Gold went way way way up recently, I think my numbers would have been accurate.

Still it seems we are getting good deals on Rosses now.. assuming they are still seen as "good as new!"
 
Price on the M-16 during the 'Nam war was US$109 per unit, but they were buying a whole big whack of them. Price in vancouver was C$198. Gold was US$35, $C was about US$.95, if I remember rightly.

When Canada adopted the C7, with spare parts, they averaged C$1,314 a pop, of which C$300 was paid to COLT as a royalty on "their" design. I had a Minister of defence right ticked at me when I pointed this out in a newspaper column.
 
smellie said:
Just wondering how much our toys actually cost when they were brand-new.

Any information regarded with gratitude.

How about the Kar98k?

There's a question!

When you figure the costs on some of them, we're really getting good deals, even at today's prices.
Click to expand...

Average price for a K98K made during WWII was RM 55.35. In 1939 the cost was RM 75.80, but dropped to RM 65 by 1942. One point to note is that slave labor was used for some of the manufacturing process.
 
1866

Short rifle musket pattern 1860 with rammer, sword bayonet and scabbard, snap cap, and muzzle stopper L 5-4-9 3/4

Rifle musket, pattern 1853, with rammer, bayonet and scabbard, snap cap and muzzle stopper L 3-1-11 1/2
 
I was looking at the numbers Bdft quoted.

When war was declared in August, 1914, Vickers were manufacturing 12 machine guns a week. Demand from the British Army was so high that Vickers had to find new ways of increasing production. By 1915 Vickers supplied the British armed forces with 2,405 guns. These increases continued throughout the First World War: 7,429 (1916); 21,782 (1917) and 39,473 (1918). The Vickers Company was accused of profiteering when in the early stages of the war they charged the Home Office £175 per gun. Under pressure from the government, Vickers reduced the price to £80 per gun.

Then I compared that to the wages paid to a bus driver and a munitions worker.

Bus driver 60s or 3Pounds
Munitions worker 6-10 Pounds (the 20P must have been a HUGE amount of overtime!)

So it would take a bus driver about 27 weeks to buy a Vickers, and only 8 to 13 weeks for a munitions worker to buy one.
Now admitidly, mine was deactivated, but it seems like quite a bargain for the C$750 I paid for mine a dozen years ago!
 
All these numbers are dandy, but we need an equivalent modern day conversion to make sense of it!

65 RM sure......... what would that be in modern day dollars?

300$? 1000$?
 
I am a historian not a math whiz so feel free to double check my work.

RM 65.00 x 0.40US = $26

10 1940 dollars equalled 126 2003 dollars (wartime inflation for sure).

Thus $126 x 2.6

Thus a 65 RM K98 would equal about $327.60 (in 2003)

This is with wartime inflation however, so I imagine during peacetime a K98 might actually be a bit cheaper than that.
 
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