The price of leather jackets

[Deleted member 16736]

Shoes are another good example. Here's an example I pulled from a Sears catalog: in 1935, a pair of Gold Bond men's cowhide shoes were $3.45, or about 1/10th of an ounce of gold (gold in 1935 was fixed at $35 per oz.) Today 1/10th of an ounce of gold is worth $160, and sure enough you can buy a "Sears-quality" pair of men's cowhide dress shoes for $160. Florsheim comes to mind.

Or how about a nice pair of New England shell cordovan men's dress shoes from a 1959 Sears catalog ad for $14.90/pair. In 1959 gold was still fixed at $35/ oz. So that's about .42 ounces of gold. Do you know what .42 ounces of gold is worth today? $680. And what do a pair of Alden made-in-New England shell cordovans sell for today?

$680.

Back on a gold standard, the price of goods would be about the same as they were 50+ years ago.

By the way, I may have overstated the price of a horsehide jacket in today's market by looking at the higher end repro makers. There are leather jackets today that don't promise perfect authenticity selling for $600-700. So if you average them, you probably get close to the $800 figure they should be selling for according to my theory. Maybe gold isn't overpriced in dollar terms.