In which case, in what sense was it worth five dollars? If you tell me that something is worth five dollars then I'm going to expect to, for instance, be able

In which case, in what sense was it worth five dollars? If you tell me that something is worth five dollars then I'm going to expect to, for instance, be able to get two loaves of bread for it. Or maybe half an hour's work from an unskilled labourer. Of course the conversion ratio between loaves and hours was different then (I assume bread is a lot cheaper/labour is more expensive) which is why we can't really convert between today's money and the money of the 1770s.