Thursday, November 26, 2009

Old shells

This morning before going to Momma's for shooting, we were sorting through stocks of shotgun shells and I found this box that Daddy had bought sometime in the past. You can click on the image for a larger view.



The interesting box is the Winchester box on the left. It was purchased at Howard Brother's, a local department store that closed circa mid 1980s. The price tag on the box indicates that they priced it September 1982 (9 82) and the price was $6.47 for a box of high-velocity 16 gauge shotgun shells.

The box on the right was purchased earlier this week. Also high velocity 16 gauge shotgun shells, they cost $13.50 for the same 25 shells.

In 1982, the average income was $21,000 per year, a gallon of gasoline cost 91 cents and first class postage was 20 cents. A box of good shotgun shells cost $6.47.

I'm just saying.

2 comments:

jon spencer said...

Here is a good tool for figuring old to modern prices.
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

Rivrdog said...

Also, have you noticed that some brands of shells come in a box of 20, not 25 now?

That's a 20% increase in price right there, since those "boxes" are priced the same as the old 25-shell boxes.

Of course, this marketing scam is nothing new. My favorite beef jerky, made by World Kitchens, is now sold in packages of 12 oz. It was always sold in packages of 16 oz until about a year ago.

This package-shrinking was all led off by marketing of ground coffee. About 20-25 years ago, coffee was sold in one-pound and three-pound cans. Those cans are now 13 ounces and 39 ounces, respectively.

I look for all this scamming to go on, and when our "world-thinking" leaders finally force us into the metric system for good, there will be even more chicanery with package weight/counts.