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Angeregt durch villas Reisehandbuch " A tramp trip . How to see europe at 50 Cents a day " eröffne ich diesen Thread, in dem Ihr Beispiele dafür einstellen können, was man für eine bestimmte Münze aus Eurer Sammlung zur Zeit ihres Umlaufes bekommen hätte.

Danke, Mynter. I hope folks will share--speaking just for myself, I'd rather read than write.

v.

How coins actually worked is an aspect of the hobby that really interests a lot of us. For me, personally, travel guidebooks have been a special source of good information about how modern coins get used.

In a second-hand store some time ago I found an old book that was in terrible shape. But boy is it useful to anyone curious about prices (and thus coin usage) in Europe about 1885 or so:

A TRAMP TRIP (How to see Europe on Fifty Cents a Day), written in 1886 by Lee Meriwether and published in 1887 by Harper & Brothers of New York.

I’m just beginning to read it closely. A quick look, however, reveals a rough itinerary: Italia, Switzerland, Austria, Bavaria, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia, Prussia, France, England. Not all of these places were destinations—and there isn’t much detail on some of them. For others, though…

Italia was a destination of author Meriwether, so I’ll start with this first extract—which is useful too because it injects a bit of real-world back-and-forth into the question of contemporary prices. That is, prices—and so coin-use—often are very different depending on the person, etc.

About the following, which is intended to give the reader a feel for how “bargaining” worked in Italia:

1) “soldo” and its plural “soldi” were obsolete coins in the Italian kingdom, but whose colloquial use was nevertheless continued, and applied to the 5-centesimi denomination for many years thereafter.
2) “cent” and “cents” here refer to American currency, which at the time exchanged at 20 cents = 1 lira.

Mr. Meriwether, in Napoli at the time:

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“This system is annoying, but with experience comes wisdom. And then the tricks of roguish shopkeepers are rather amusing than otherwise. I stepped up one day to one of the numerous lemonade stands that adorn the Piazzas of Italian cities, and said to the vendor,

‘How much for lemonade?’

I knew very well the regular price was one cent per glass, but I wanted to play with the fellow. He looked at me sharply, calculating how green I was and how much I could stand.

‘Cinque soldi’ (five cents), he said.

‘Five soldi,’ I repeated, as if almost of a mind to buy; then, drawing back: ‘No, signore, too dear, I cannot pay it.’

‘Too dear? No very cheap. It is fine lemonade. Come, cinque soldi.’

‘No; too dear.’

‘Ah, sainted Maria, what do you wish? Four soldi?’

‘Still too dear.’

‘Three?’

‘No, one. I will give you one soldo.’

‘What, one soldo? One soldo? My God in heaven! It is nothing; but take it, signore, take it. I lose, but you can take it,’ and he proceeded to pour out the lemonade.

In this the reader has a picture of bargaining in Italy.”

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Circulating in Italia at the time would have been this 1861m 5-centesimi (“soldo”). It was coined in Milano up north, but by 1885 it could very easily have worked its way down to Napoli many years before.

Where it might have bought Mr. Meriwether his glass of lemonade….

v.

Just a note about the language used in the book. Some of it is strange to 21st century ears. Some of it is quite jarring, actually.

Most of the quirks are easy to figure, of course, like "dear" being used to mean "expensive." But there is also the question of idiomatic expressions, which may be a little tougher. Listening to my Italian friends, I note a little difficulty with: "He looked at me sharply, calculating how green I was and how much I could stand."

"Green" is being used in its sense denoting a rookie, newbie, or neophyte (folks who knew that "green" is often "dollars" in the U.S.--"lettuce," sometimes--thought maybe it was a reference to how rich he was or was not.) That question does also appear, however, in the very next phrase: "...how much I could stand."

Anyway, there'll be some oddities of language, and I hope you all will forgive me when I point out the obvious, just in case.

v.

villa66 hat geschrieben:Just a note about the language used in the book. Some of it is strange to 21st century ears. Some of it is quite jarring, actually.

Most of the quirks are easy to figure, of course, like "dear" being used to mean "expensive." But there is also the question of idiomatic expressions, which may be a little tougher. Listening to my Italian friends, I note a little difficulty with: "He looked at me sharply, calculating how green I was and how much I could stand."

"Green" is being used in its sense denoting a rookie, newbie, or neophyte (folks who knew that "green" is often "dollars" in the U.S.--"lettuce," sometimes--thought maybe it was a reference to how rich he was or was not.) That question does also appear, however, in the very next phrase: "...how much I could stand."

Anyway, there'll be some oddities of language, and I hope you all will forgive me when I point out the obvious, just in case.

v.

Hello villa,

Thanks for you filling this thread with contence. I noticed the use of " dear " in the meening of " expensive " and wanted to ask you wether or not this was obsolete american english. I know that they still use " dear " in that meening in Scotland, but I have never heard it being used in Enland ( or in any english movie or book, not that I can recall anyway ).
In German and in Norwegian " being green " is a common phrase to indicate that a person is lacking experience, so that is entirely understandable to us still today.
This thread realy is promising, I hope I can get the time in the weekend to write a bit myself.

Back, for a moment, to Mr. Meriwether and his book....

He continued as some length about the Italian custom of bargaining, invoked “Baedeker, the great guide-book man,” and said that he “advises his readers to give one-third of the price demanded.”

Meriwether was of the opinion that Baedecker didn’t go far enough, and—expressing some pique at having to fight his way through multiple layers of shifting prices—said it “would hardly be exaggeration to say that the man at the post-office who sells stamps is about the only man who does not expect a fee and does not have two prices for his goods. The stamp-man, for a wonder, asks always the same price for stamps—five [U.S.]cents for stamps (Italian, “franco-bolli”) for foreign postage,

[and] four [U.S.] cents for letters within the kingdom, Sicily, and the other islands included.”

Note that in 1885 Meriwether could have been using coppers to buy his 25-centesimi (international mail) and 20-centesimi (domestic mail) worth of postage stamps, but he probably wasn’t using these 20-centesimi pieces, because they were then in the terminal phase of an official withdrawal begun a couple of years earlier.

Why they were withdraw from circulation I cannot say for sure, but I can guess that they were too small to be handy in everyday use. The value of the metal certainly wasn’t the problem—the price of silver had crashed because of the large quantities of silver being produced in the American West, and the large quantity of silver freed by the German Empire’s Great Recoinage (and adoption of a gold standard).

v.

Here, again in contemporary coin, is what Mr. Meriwether said it cost him to live in Napoli each day; we’ll look at his breakdown of the total later on….

v.

Here’s the breakdown for the L1,05 daily expenditure that Meriwether reports for his stay in Napoli.

2 notes: 1) Meriwether was living nearly as frugally as he could (although he did enjoy some small luxuries), and his stay in Napoli extends many weeks, apparently, so his expenses—and these prices—begin to approach the cost of living experienced by local folks; and 2) a few of the items below (milks, wine and lodging) will get a little more discussion.

Finocchio, Meriwether says, is “a kind of celery, wholesome and good.”

Anyway, the cost of 24 hours in Napoli for a poor (but single!) man about 1885:

Bread (1 pound) 3 cents……..15 centesimi
Macaroni (plate) 3 cents……15 centesimi
Figs (1/2 pound) 2 cents…..10 centesimi
Finocchio 2 cents……………….10 centesimi
Wine 3 cents…………………….15 centesimi
Milk 4 cents………………………20 centesimi

Total for food each day 17 cents…………………………..85 centesimi

Lodging 4 cents…………………..20 centesimi

Total daily cost of living in Napoli 21 cents………….1 lira, 5 centesimi

v.

Meriwether—like many travelers—was translating his spending in centesimi and lire into the coins and currency he was familiar with back home, in this case, cents and dollars. When he calculated that he was spending 21 cents American every day he was in Napoli, it’s very possible that something like this picture was in his mind:

But I have to flip the 1-cent over, because Meriwether would have been very much at home with the image, and it surely must have come to him automatically whenever he thought of the things in terms of American cents.… (Well, all that and the fact that Indian Head cents are just plain fun!)

v.

Nach dem ausführlichen Bericht über die Kosten unseres Italienreisenden möchte ich hier die Werbekarte einer deutschen Pension aus dem Jahr 1935 zeigen. Beigefügt habe ich ein 5 Reichsmarkstück, mit dem sich ein Urlaubstag gut finanzieren ließ. Eine Reichsmark würde heute etwa 3,50 bis 4 Euro entsprechen, und bei einem tariflichen Arbeitslohn von monatlich 134 Reichsmark im Jahr 1934/35 würden 5 Reichsmark bei einem Ansatz von monatlich 26 Arbeitstagen in etwa einem Tageslohn entsprechen. Gar so preiswert, wie es auf den ersten Blick scheint, ist das Angebot also anscheinend nicht. Aber dafür bekam man ja auch einiges geboten.

Gruß klaupo