My how times have changed

I am talking about money of course. LOL

Today I went out to get some more silver for my growing hoard and decided to do a little experiment. Granted my results are completely empirical, but I know that, just in alloys, there is a huge difference between 'then and now'.

I typically buy up Morgans when I can find them available, but today I decided to go ahead and get a Peace and an Ike, just to see the difference. The Morgans are purported to be a 90/10 alloy of silver and copper. Same with the Peace dollars. Ikes on the other hand are closer to 90/10 of copper/nickel, Not 100% certain about that but is enough that as an investment coin, they suck: therefore not even worth enough to look at the actual content.

It amazes me how much difference there is just in the tactile differences. Let alone weights and tones when 'bounced'. The Morgans sound like a bell while the Peace dollars have a neat TING! that is pretty distinctive. The Ikes on the other hand sound like a clonk! They have a tone but it has no,,, character, I guess you could call it. Rather like a fender washer bouncing on concrete, you hear it but it really doesn't sing.

The reason I bring this up is to show just how far down the road we have come in the whole "Debasing of currency". The morgan and peace dollars were rather prevalent in the late 1800's to the early part of the 1900's (the 30's more specifically) We started debasing currency pretty hardcore in the buildup and action of WWII, and the need for those metals was a great excuse. I have a couple of steel pennies from that time period and they used steel as they needed more copper for driving bands on artillery, and of course the jackets on bullets not to mention all of the com-lines and electrics in the ships and planes. Yeah, Great excuse. But of course, once the government has a handle on how to get away with something, IT NEVER GOES BACK! The people were ok with scrap metal in their coins, they spent the same way no matter the actual value.

Oh but that was just a bunch of smoke up our butts so that we wouldn't see the creeping inflation built into the system.

Our coinage today is a joke in comparison to that of yester-years. Seriously, have you really looked a the simple penny lately. It's shiny, Has an interesting shield on the back of it that looks straight out of a D.C. comic book. The thickness of that copper coating is less than a millionth of an inch. Its electroplated on a Zinc base. Heat it up with a lighter and the copper oxidizes right off. Kind of interesting to watch, but depressing when you realize that the actual value, including manufacture costs, is quite a bit less than $.01 Most places won't even list a 'value' on it as it is worth less than the air you exhale.

I don't mind that the 'cartwheels' are so damned heavy. Hell, a handful of them, say 10, will buy you a months worth of groceries, if handled properly. NOW, at face value, that is roughly what a months groceries would have ran my great grandmother back in 1905. They really do show the actual inflation we have seen.

Scary ain't it?