Equivalent values

[GARY]

In 1862, what was one British Pound Sterling worth in U.S. dollars?

[oly]

On Oct 29, 8:18 pm, GARY <gcott...@co.riverside.ca.us> wrote:
> In 1862, what was one British Pound Sterling worth in U.S. dollars?

Sovereign Actual Gold Weight (AGW) divided by Five Dollar Liberty AGW
equals One pound (unit) divided by Five Dollars (unit)

(0.2354) divided by (0.2419) = x divided by 5.00

eventually, move the variables around until:

x = (0.2354) times (5.00), the resulting number all divided by
(0.2419)

x = 4.8656

One Pound (in Gold) equals $4.856 (in Gold)

This is simply a comparison of the respective gold weights of the
Sovereign and the $5 Liberty. Paper money (banknotes) or other
financial paper not considered here.

Pounds and Dollars were just "labels" for certain amounts of gold in
various national currency systems. In the end, it all came down to
the weights of pure gold in the coins.

oly

[oly]

Damn fingers and eyes don't quite work together like they used to:

x = 4.8656; One Pound (in Gold) equals $4.8656

oly

[Peter Irwin]

oly <oly...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> Damn fingers and eyes don't quite work together like they used to:
>
> x = 4.8656; One Pound (in Gold) equals $4.8656
>

Actually a dollar was 23.22 grains of fine gold,
a pound was roughly 113.001 grains of fine gold,
so the gold rate of exchange was 486.65. This is
very close to 4.86 2/3 which was the number most
people learned.

I think the question was about 1862, when the US paper dollar
was in a bit of trouble. The worst date was 11 July 1864
when it cost $2.78 US paper to buy a gold dollar or a Canadian
dollar. So at that time, it would cost as much as $13.53 US paper
to buy a sovereign.

Peter.
--
pir...@ktb.net




a oly

[oly]

On Oct 30, 7:31 am, Peter Irwin <pir...@ktb.net> wrote:
> oly <oly2...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > @#!*% fingers and eyes don't quite work together like they used to:

The United States paper dollar (greenback) didn't get back to par with
the Gold dollar until 1879, I believe. During 1862 to 1879, if you
wanted gold for your paper notes, it took more than $1 in paper to get
$1 in gold coin.

I'm not a paper money collecting person, but there wasn't Federal
paper money until 1862-ish, the worst trouble (depreciation) was a bit
later than that.

I used the illustration of the gold sovereign versus five dollar gold
as they were nearly physical gold weight equivalents and (for some
people) it is easy to see how the small gold content difference in the
two coins amounted to a nominal "fifteen cents". As you have shown,
the math can be expressed quite a few different ways.

In the nineteenth century, "pound" and "dollar" were essentially two
different national "brand names" for the same product, gold.

Then, the "exchange rate" for gold between nations was a purely
mathematical exercise; if the exchange rate in the money center
marketplaces varied by only two or three percent, gold would actually
shift/move between respective countries until the exchange markets
moved back closer to par.

oly