Wow, times have changed since 1974

Today I decided to clean out one of my crawl spaces, and to my surprise I found quite a collection of national geographic magazines all the way in the back. They are very well preserved, which is surprising, since they were sitting there in the open, not in a box etc.

Well I opened up the oldest one that was in there, was from January 1974. The first story is titled
"The Eternal Treasure gold"

It starts out, with the author Peter White, talking about a gold skillet, and cooking eggs on it. The skillet apparently weighed 1 3/4 pounds, and was valued at $2,965. That is amazing to me. Today an ounce of gold is $1326, and there is 12 ounces in a pound(I believe gold uses troy ounces), so that skillet is 21 ounces. So today, that skillet would be worth $15,912. Unless I am mistaken on gold using the troy system, then it would be $21,219.

I thought that tidbit was quite intersting, maybe others will find it interesting too

You should compare the price difference to common items of the day at that time too such as Eggs, Milk, Bread, Gas, etc... That would give you an idea of the change outside of the standard rate of inflation. It would be interesting to see the differences, actually.

After all, a $1.00 in 1974 != $1.00 in 2013.

reply to post by TKDRL


I suppose I may not actually know too much about gold, but a gold skillet just doesn't sound like a very good idea. If we were to completely ignore the cost factor, was he saying it in a serious manner? or was he just telling a story with that as a blatantly obvious exaggeration?




This may be none of my business, but I'm just curious:
Do you know who the magazines originally belonged to?
(maybe the house previously belonged to a relative?)
or
Do you have no idea who may have lived there years ago?

reply to post by BrokenCircles


Oh he was serious, he had it specially made just for that experiment of cooking breakfast on it, but it was only a loaner. He says "To keep it would not only have been expensive, but a federal offense. The gold regulations of the US Treasury Dept. restrict the holding of fabricated gold to such forms and quantities as are custumarily used."

I guess the control freaks haven't changed much

I bought the house from grandma actually, it would have been hers or grandpa's, or maybe my uncle. He lived here for a few years, after he got married, and my grandparents were still working in the US.

reply to post by Krakatoa


It was before my time, But I still remember from the early 90's to now was a pretty big difference. Could fill the tank of gas at the time for 15 bucks for example.

in 1974 a year subscription of national geographic cost $8.50, today it seems to be $15. Not that much of a change there, $15 for 12 magazines is actually reasonable.

Originally posted by TKDRL

He says "To keep it would not only have been expensive, but a federal offense. The gold regulations of the US Treasury Dept. restrict the holding of fabricated gold to such forms and quantities as are custumarily used."

I kinda understand why defacing money can be a Federal Offense, but that's↑ just flat out ridiculous........

Sadly though, I have no problem believing that it's true.

Found an ad for the 1977 ford thunderbird. brand spankin new, with all the trimmings is $5,434
That's with tax and title transfer too. Wow.

Originally posted by TKDRL

in 1974 a year subscription of national geographic cost $8.50, today it seems to be $15. Not that much of a change there, $15 for 12 magazines is actually reasonable.

I bet that price is actually lower now than it would have been about 10-15 years ago. The rise of the internet has forced magazines to lower their prices.(I think so anyways, but that's just a guess)


I started to search for that↑, but quickly gave up on it after seeing this↓article.
How To Find The Collectors' Value Of National Geographic Magazines


Apparently, National Geographic Magazine has been around for much longer than I would have assumed, so you shouldn't get your hopes up, but if I were you I would consider doing a bit of research on the magazines you found. You may have stumbled upon something valuable.

When considering the sale of a collection or looking for information about the worth of a personal collection, valuing the magazines can take a little time and research. [color=ADD6A0]According to National Geographic's website, the magazine has been inspiring the world since 1888. The magazine covers a wide range of topics, including nature, science, technology and photography. DT Magazine explains that the magazine only started monthly circulation in 1896 and, in the years before then, only nine issues were published.

They give a few steps in that article, such as going through them and removing any that are damaged, molded, etc.... but step 2 is:

[color=ADD6A0]Go to National Geographic's Collector's Corner and click on the Collector's Forum. Write a post about which National Geographic magazines are in the collection and request information from the dealers about potential buyers or values of the magazines.

Part of Step 3:

[color=ADD6A0]Newer National Geographic magazines are not as valuable as older ones, but value will often depend on whether there is someone looking for a particular issue or not.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


I plan to do the same thing I did with all the old baseball cards I found, bag them up, box them up. The ones from the 70's, you can tell they were read a lot, spine bending and cover damage. only 15 from the 70's, the rest are all from the 90's and in great shape. Who knows, maybe the 80's are hidden somewhere in the attic, or one of the other crawlspace storage areas.

FYI Gold is measured in the Troy system

12 troy oz == 1 pound

reply to post by Magister

Thanks, I thought it did. Man, looking at my OP is embarrassing...... I should not attempt math before two cups of coffee......
That pan would be worth $27,846 today, I was a bit off.