3 ms·

I wonder what the cost of these would have been at the time, I’m guessing paper was at least an order of magnitude more expensive and the purchasing power was l

I wonder what the cost of these would have been at the time, I’m guessing paper was at least an order of magnitude more expensive and the purchasing power was lower.

mbsd 2y ago
You will probably find this interesting https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/writing-paper-expensive/ https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/writing-paper-expensi... > To put this in perspective, the average laborer making 6-12 pence a day could purchase up to 75 sheets of paper with a day’s wages.
- Cerium 2y ago
  The Paper Index: Today's minimum wage worker (pre tax) pay can buy about 170 times more paper (about 12k sheets per day).
  - b112 2y ago
    Hmm. I wonder. While I'm sure your math is correct, there are differences outside of the paper itself. For example, we're not going to the general store and buying pieces of paper one at a time from the merchant. "I'll have 17 pieces good sir" We can order bulk from Amazon in the form of a package of 500 sheets for $10, but that paper is also higher and lower quality than the paper from 200 years ago. (Thinner, for one thing..). Of course, buying 500 sheets is part of the whole change in our economy. Mass production enables part of that. It seems, to me, so very hard to equate wage to purchase this way, not just for paper but anything. Even food, the massive change that pesticides, fertilizer, and crop rotation(huge!), safe canning, refrigeration, all these things mean that food costs have plummeted. Even different strains of crops, storage methods, the last century has seen yields increase immensely from the same land.
mytailorisrich 2y ago
It was a boarding school for girls at the time, so for the elite.
inglor_cz 2y ago
There is an active manual paper mill in Czechia, one of the very last around Europe. Dates back to 1596 AD. You can book a tour around the facility and see people working in all stages of manual paper production. https://www.rpvl.cz/en/ https://www.rpvl.cz/en/ The paper is beautiful (and often used for diplomas etc.), but expensive as heck. A single A4 costs about a dollar.

I wonder what the cost of these would have been at the time, I’m guessing paper was at least an order of magnitude more expensive and the purchasing power was lower.

mbsd 2y ago

You will probably find this interesting https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/writing-paper-expensive/ https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/writing-paper-expensi... > To put this in perspective, the average laborer making 6-12 pence a day could purchase up to 75 sheets of paper with a day’s wages.

Cerium 2y ago
The Paper Index: Today's minimum wage worker (pre tax) pay can buy about 170 times more paper (about 12k sheets per day).
- b112 2y ago
  Hmm. I wonder. While I'm sure your math is correct, there are differences outside of the paper itself. For example, we're not going to the general store and buying pieces of paper one at a time from the merchant. "I'll have 17 pieces good sir" We can order bulk from Amazon in the form of a package of 500 sheets for $10, but that paper is also higher and lower quality than the paper from 200 years ago. (Thinner, for one thing..). Of course, buying 500 sheets is part of the whole change in our economy. Mass production enables part of that. It seems, to me, so very hard to equate wage to purchase this way, not just for paper but anything. Even food, the massive change that pesticides, fertilizer, and crop rotation(huge!), safe canning, refrigeration, all these things mean that food costs have plummeted. Even different strains of crops, storage methods, the last century has seen yields increase immensely from the same land.

mytailorisrich 2y ago

It was a boarding school for girls at the time, so for the elite.

inglor_cz 2y ago

There is an active manual paper mill in Czechia, one of the very last around Europe. Dates back to 1596 AD. You can book a tour around the facility and see people working in all stages of manual paper production. https://www.rpvl.cz/en/ https://www.rpvl.cz/en/ The paper is beautiful (and often used for diplomas etc.), but expensive as heck. A single A4 costs about a dollar.