A hundred years ago a US silver dollar would buy you a decent steak dinner, and naturally a US $10 gold eagle coin would serve 10 people.
Now that same kind of dinner can still be had for the same silver dollar, but the amount of gold in the small 1923 gold eagle[0] would be enough to serve 30 today, not merely the 10 diners of 100 years ago.
And some of these are nice restaurants.
Today if your dollar does not contain the full ounce of silver it was originally intended to, and all you have is a $1 bank note instead, it still buys a kid-sized ice cream cone at McDonald's. Now sometimes only during special promotions depending on market.
[0] Regular ordinary legal tender, but were all confiscated by the government because they were gold in 1933, when the ownership of gold by Americans was outlawed until decades later (only after its backing of the dollar was discontinued).
Thanks for the info, I didn't know back in the 19th century that the US also used bimetallic currency where 10 US silver dollar is equivalent to 1 gold coin.
This has been (more or less) the standard since like forever, for at least several thousand of years including in major world's empires including the Greek, Persian, Roman (Rome and Byzantine), Islamic (Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ottoman) and British Empire until 19th century where bimetallic currency namely silver coin (dirham) and gold coin (dinar) were pervasive.
Fun facts, the word dirham in Islamic empire is derived from the word drachma with the same meaning in Greek, while dinar is derived from the Roman word denarius.
Bimetallic currencies were a hairball for every major economy for decades. If you tie a currency to gold or silver alone, and the other a sort of token sense, it generally works.
When you try to do both, you end up with situations where the government gets incentivized to take a metal that's fairly low value, and stamp a design into it to infuse it with new value. Silver bullion in the 1880s that might be worth 60 cents an ounce suddenly went up to a buck and change when you turned it into a Morgan or Trade Dollar. I suspect the introduction of the $20 gold piece in 1849 (and possibly the $3 in 1854) were in part to sop up a glut on the gold market.
I like yours but, the rule of thumb for gold I've heard is that from Roman time until today, a 1 oz gold coin is enough to buy a suit of clothes and a fancy dinner.
Now that same kind of dinner can still be had for the same silver dollar, but the amount of gold in the small 1923 gold eagle[0] would be enough to serve 30 today, not merely the 10 diners of 100 years ago.
And some of these are nice restaurants.
Today if your dollar does not contain the full ounce of silver it was originally intended to, and all you have is a $1 bank note instead, it still buys a kid-sized ice cream cone at McDonald's. Now sometimes only during special promotions depending on market.
[0] Regular ordinary legal tender, but were all confiscated by the government because they were gold in 1933, when the ownership of gold by Americans was outlawed until decades later (only after its backing of the dollar was discontinued).