Thread: Good prices?

Yes, we look at those prices and wish we had lived when high quality tools were nice and cheep. Or so I thought. It was with interest hearing old craftsmen talking about how buying a plane cost them a weeks worth of wages as an apprentice. With the posted image containing dates and prices, I thought I'd embark on a research exercise.

Based on the numbers below, in nearly all cases, given the choice I would prefer to be buying quality tools today.

1929: The average weekly wage (all workers) was £3.79
2018: The average weekly wage (all workers) was $

1,195.48

Stanley vs Veritas No 4
1929: £0.9 or 24% of average weekly wage.
2018 $369 or 31% of average weekly wage.
Veritas $83 premium in today's money.

Stanley vs Veritas No 4.5
1929: £0.95 or 25%
2018: $399 or 33%
Veritas $100 premium in today's money

Stanley vs Veritas No 5 (Actually the Veritas 5 1/4)
1929: £1.05 or 28%
2018: $399 or 33%
Veritas $64 premium in today's money

Stanley vs Veritas No 6
1929: £1.30 or 35%
2018: $439 or 37%
Veritas $21 premium in today's money

Stanley vs Veritas No 71 (router plane)
1929: £0.85 or 23%
2018: $269 or 23%
Veritas $0 premium in today's money

Sources:
Wages: Measuring Worth - Australian Compensation
1929 price: the attached photo
1998 price: It's actually the current Timbecon price, but let's call that close enough for this exercise.

If you think I've got my maths wrong, you can download a copy of my SS from Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

Kind regards,
Lance

Sorry Lance, I think your maths may be a bit misleading, even if the numbers themselves add up. Unless you can compare average wages solely in the relevant trades, you're taking numbers that have all sorts of extra data built in to them that will affect the result. Not to mention that average/mean data is affected by the very large and small numbers in the set, as opposed to the median, which is just the middle number when ordered in ascending value.

As the old saying goes: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Also don't forget that back them you were buying Stanley made in the USA, which was a premium tool in its time (and still sought after now).

Elan makes a good point, but I suppose it's even more complicated than that. The amount of disposable income after basic living expenses would arguably be a more relevant metric. In addition, the distribution of income across the population would also be relevant. Consider a very narrow gaussian distribution versus a broad one in the context of relatively high living costs for a person falling close to the median income. The first (narrow) would mean that not many could afford expensive luxuries, whereas in a broad distribution, while many would struggle to afford even basic items, there would also be a lot that could afford expensive luxuries. I guess the higher level of income inequality in a broader distribution is what we are seeing today, although I make that statement without any data on hand to back up this opinion.

Edit - so to add to that, if you fall to the high side of the wealth/income distribution you would argue that things are cheaper now than ever or vice-versa.

Cheers, Dom

Elan and Dom, I don't disagree with either of your criticisms (or observations if that seems too strong ). I hope in this case it at last gives us a starting point, considering the broad spectrum of this forum's audience across trades, professions and financial circumstance to understand the relative cost of quality planes between then and now.

If anyone had access to more relevant stats from 1929 and now and would like to run the numbers, I would be interested.

Kind regards,
Lance

Did a little bit of googling and found this back catalogue of Victorian Year Books: https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]&num=&view=&

The 1929 Book gives the average cabinet maker's weekly wage as £4 3s 0d

The 2002 Book (most recent one there) gives the average tradesperson's (they don't break it down any further) weekly wage in May 2000 as $677.70

I'll let you plug all that in to your spreadsheed, I don't have Excel.