Was the half eagle of the 1800's the $100 bill of its day?

tresgatos

I'm curious. What do you think?

PerryHall

Probably had as much purchasing power.

lordmarcovan

I guess that's pretty close.

CaptHenway

A fair comparison, with the half dollar being the ten dollar bill you took to the store.

firstmint

One of the problems was that the Half Eagles didn't circulate very often as a medium of exchange in daily commerce.

By comparison, the average wage for workers at the US Mint in 1793 was approximately $5.00- $6.00 per week.

I'd say that the half eagle was worth more than $100 back then.

Higashiyama

It is of course hard to compare purchasing power that long ago, because the nature of consumption has changed so dramatically, but as a rule of thumb, assuming a 20 fold increase in prices is about right, so the half eagle is somewhat comparable to the $100 bill.

In thinking about the mint workers' salaries, keep in mind that real wages are vastly higher now than they were 200 years ago, to think about a $ 5 weekly wage back then compared to a wage now, you need to multiply by both an inflation factor, and a factor representing growth in real wages. For example, if prices are 20 times higher now, and real wages are 7 times higher, you would need to multiple the $ 5 - 6 per week by 140 to arrive at a comparable current weekly salary of $ 700 - 840.

(said in another way, a half eagle may be a plausible representation of purchasing power back then, but it is not a good representation of wages -- in this sense, a half eagle was harder to come by then than $ 100 is now!)