The Price Of Tobacco

[glpease]

... after looking at a 1940s Wally Frank catalogue. Pipe tobaccos then were pennies per ounce.

Many posts seem to lament low tobacco prices from decades ago without a nod to our friend, inflation. In the rush to blame taxes and consumers (or the lack of consumers) we cannot be so hasty as to forget the differences between real and nominal dollars. Tobacco did cost less in the recent past, but so did everything else. People also made much less.

Pennies per ounce is not as economical when one's salary is less than $1500 annually. Even in the 1970s the average annual income for an American was below $10,000.

Those twenty five cents Skip spent to purchase a pack of cigarettes in the '60s could buy a $6.50 pack today.
In fact, given the Depression, it's likely that purchasing Tobacco for let's say 5 cents an ounce in 1940 would have been like purchasing it for over $60 an ounce today.

Food for thought...

And, I also wrote, in the same post, among other things,

On the other hand, I can't think of too many things that have risen less in price over the last 30 years. In 1980, a loaf of bread was about 50¢.

It's interesting how the original point disappears when things are quoted out of context.

 

[talrmn35]

Thanks for keeping things in proper perspective. That is always quite refreshing...

 

[Bill]

I bought my first pipe tobacco back in 1971.Today tobacco costs about four times what it did back then.I guess that's not really all that bad though,if you consider how much some other things have gone up since then.Still each time I have to pay more for tobacco than I did the time before I get irritated and feel that I'm being taken advantage of.I don't really understand why that is though because I can't remember a time during those 40 years that I didn't have at least some tobacco to smoke.I'm sure that like it has in the past the price of pipe tobacco will continue to rise in the future.I guess I will try to adjust my attitude,pay what ever tobacco costs and keep smoking,After all this time I don't have any plans to stop.I'm not sure as to how many young folks will decide to start paying those prices for tobacco though.

It's went up considerably in the last 5 years. For the most part, I purchase mine in bulk and it's still pretty reasonable. Postage kinda sucks though.

 

[Carlos]

Even with the recent small price hikes, it is still inexpensive really. A large portion of any Internet order is shipping, unless you meet the free shipping minimums. I always try to take advantage of that.