If You Spent £5 On A Record In 1978

[Boogaloo]

............ how much would it be in today's money. Had this very same conversation with a pal of mine at the last Boogaloo. Got onto the subject because I remember selling a record (can't even remember what it was) for £14 on the train to Wigan in 1978 and dined out for more than a month on the profits. This becomes even more complicated considering that we were much younger then and very much poorer so the difference would be even greater. There were even regional differences in record prices then, as well.

Basically could someone come up with a mathematical formula to work out how much was a fiver worth back then.

Warren Boogaloo

[Mark Bicknell]

Well, i took home about £23.00 per week back in 1976, paid my mum £5.00 per week towards house keeping, went to Wigan every week, went out pretty much every night and still had money left next payday, a pint of beer was about 20p so money just seemed to last longer, a fiver must have been worth well a fiver...lol but on the basis of against today five pounds must have been worth like £50.00 today.

Regards - Mark Bicknell.

[Guest LUCY J W]

Well, i took home about £23.00 per week back in 1976, paid my mum £5.00 per week towards house keeping, went to Wigan every week, went out pretty much every night and still had money left next payday, a pint of beer was about 20p so money just seemed to last longer, a fiver must have been worth well a fiver...lol but on the basis of against today five pounds must have been worth like £50.00 today.

Regards - Mark Bicknell.

Surely your not old enough Mark

[Guest James Trouble]

............ how much would it be in today's money. Had this very same conversation with a pal of mine at the last Boogaloo. Got onto the subject because I remember selling a record (can't even remember what it was) for £14 on the train to Wigan in 1978 and dined out for more than a month on the profits. This becomes even more complicated considering that we were much younger then and very much poorer so the difference would be even greater. There were even regional differences in record prices then, as well.

Basically could someone come up with a mathematical formula to work out how much was a fiver worth back then.

Warren Boogaloo

That'll be about £45 in todays money, that's an estimate though as inflation rates vary over time.

Perhaps better to compare the price of a rare painting, antique or rare bottle of wine from around the same period, so compare a £14 bottle of wine in 1978 to the same bottle in 2006?

Edited July 12, 2006 by James Trouble

[Mark Bicknell]

Surely your not old enough Mark

Don't you start taking the piss....lol and to think you were a little girl when we first met...lol

Mark.

[Guest James Trouble]

Click here for an inflation calculator to 2001

I'm sure there's one somewhere for 2006? As I say, tricky to caculate exactly because of ever changing rates of inflation.

Edited July 12, 2006 by James Trouble

[Ernie Andrews]

I sold my collection in one night at wigan except 6 records Jan 1980.

I got £1785.00. I bought a new motorcycle and had a fabulous holiday.

So Guess what that lot would have been worth today?

GULP!

Edited July 12, 2006 by Ernie Andrews

[Guest James Trouble]

Maybe better to see what your £14 would have been worth if you had invested it in the stock market?

The S+P500 was trading in the 90s in 1978, it is trading 1270 today which would make your £14 worth about £200 today I'd guess What record was it?

And it would make the collection sold in 1980 for £1785 worth about £22700 today. How does that compare to what was in the collection?

Edited July 12, 2006 by James Trouble

[Guest Baz]

I sold my collection in one night at wigan except 6 records Jan 1980.

I got £1785.00. I bought a new motorcycle and had a fabulous holiday.

So Guess what that lot would have been worth today?

GULP!

yes but the question is would you be able to sell them all now and for top prices doubt it very very much

[Boogaloo]

Well, i took home about £23.00 per week back in 1976, paid my mum £5.00 per week towards house keeping.....

Regards - Mark Bicknell.

Only £5 per week for your keep. You had it good. I remember my mum saying that if I didn't stay on at school she'd want £7 a week for my keep. But then again she only owned Jim Reeves records.

[Ernie Andrews]

yes but the question is would you be able to sell them all now and for top prices doubt it very very much

Good point - some have not moved very much - Embers etc but others have gone daft- e.g Del larks.

Makes you think though even if it had gone up ten fold it would be anice tidy sum

[Guest LUCY J W]

Don't you start taking the piss....lol and to think you were a little girl when we first met...lol

Mark.

[/quote

I will consider myself told off

Lucy

[Guest Andy BB]

But then again she only owned Jim Reeves records.

Welcome to my world.

[Guest James Trouble]

Good point - some have not moved very much - Embers etc but others have gone daft- e.g Del larks.

Makes you think though even if it had gone up ten fold it would be anice tidy sum

If the records had only gone up ten fold then you did good to sell, because you would have had a better return on the stock market.

Sorry, but all this "how unlucky was I selling my records in 1980", and "that only cost me £10 in 1983, ha ha it's so overpriced at £200 on Manship's auction today" is just the biggest load of nonsense that is written on this site seemingly every day.

If only my aunt had bollocks she'd be my uncle

[Val (Chunky)]

Cor!..... if only I knew then what I know now..........

[Simsy]

Only £5 per week for your keep. You had it good. I remember my mum saying that if I didn't stay on at school she'd want £7 a week for my keep. But then again she only owned Jim Reeves records.

Luxury. We had to pay mill owner to work there. Got up before we went to bed and lick road clean we our tongues ..

[Boogaloo]

Luxury. We had to pay mill owner to work there. Got up before we went to bed and lick road clean we our tongues ..

You, as well.

[Val (Chunky)]

Luxury. We had to pay mill owner to work there. Got up before we went to bed and lick road clean we our tongues ..

Luxury.........you had a bed to go to and you had a road to lick :angry: now we were poor..............

[Guest nubes]

Only £5 per week for your keep. You had it good. I remember my mum saying that if I didn't stay on at school she'd want £7 a week for my keep. But then again she only owned Jim Reeves records.

Warren, I had this as well, and yes MA was a big Jim Reeves fan, I don't know, My Ma and Fa, both used to go to the London Soho Flamingo niters in the late 50s and early 60s cos that was one of the few places that didn't have a " colour bar" etc etc, so they were probably, along with their peers, the first young people to hear the new style of RnB called soul and they subjected their children who grew up in the '60s and 70s to Jim blooody Reeves, Call Childline purlese call childline. Del xxxx

[Guest in town Mikey]

YOU'LL BE SORRY.

This would have been so much easier to do had I still been at work. For a start I wouldnt have to get a pen and paper out to do it.

OK Jan 1978 the Retail Prices Index stood at 189.5 (Based on 1974=100)

May 2006 RPI = 779.9 (Base 1974 = 100)

So

(779.9/189.5) x £5.00 = £20.58 I think. Somebody get a calculator.

Most people expect it to be much more, but wages have really outstripped inflation. So when I used to work for the RPI I was always telling moaning old wallies what £x in 1960 is today, and they'd moan like cheap hookers.

Nice refresher course for me tho ;-)

[Boogaloo]

So

(779.9/189.5) x £5.00 = £20.58 I think. Somebody get a calculator.

Most people expect it to be much more, but wages have really outstripped inflation. So when I used to work for the RPI I was always telling moaning old wallies what £x in 1960 is today, and they'd moan like cheap hookers.

Nice refresher course for me tho ;-)

Nice one MIkey. However, surely the fact that wages have outstripped inflation must be factored into the equasion plus the cost of living should also affect the results.

Warren

[John Al]

Nice one MIkey. However, surely the fact that wages have outstripped inflation must be factored into the equasion plus the cost of living should also affect the results.

Warren

Wouldn't you also need to factor in career progress, promotions etc? Otherwise you would be comparing (for example) school leaver wages 1978 with school leaver wages today. This probably can't be formulated as it's an individual thing. Challenge for you there Mikey!!

Also as someone said, some records have not increased in price or even gone down.

Just a thought.............

John.

[Guest James Trouble]

Nice one MIkey. However, surely the fact that wages have outstripped inflation must be factored into the equasion plus the cost of living should also affect the results.

Warren

Cost of living? What do you think inflation is?

[Guest martyn]

June 1976;(still got the wage slip!)

Income(definate)

Net pay £18.65

Expenditure (from memory)

£5.00-Mum

£4.00-Gear

£0.75-petrol for my Puch Maxi

£0.50-petrol money for a lift to the nighter

£0.30-Brut

£5.00-Pub & Soul Night money for the week........

£ whatevers left-Records or Clothes

Thursday-(Hit Mum for a Sub)

£2.00-More Gear.

And so began the downward spiral

[Guest Bearsy]

Warren i can just remember the amount of pocket money i got when i was 10 it was about 20p if i behaved so more often than not i didnt get anything, 1978 they were the days with no cares or worry`s, my 9 year old gets a tenner every week plus everything else she screams for so i make that a bloody big difference.100 times as much i guess.

Bearsy

[Boogaloo]

Cost of living? What do you think inflation is?

Dearest James. The cost of living is made up of a number of factors. Inflation being one that affect it. It isn't the only indicator. Some of the factors are goods and services depending on where you live, food, clothing, household goods, transportation and entertainment. A tight wad, like myself, has a lower cost of living cos I'm always first out of the car and last one to the bar.

[Simon T]

Apparently, using the 'retail price index' £5 of 1978 is equivalent to £19.21 in 2005. Might make sense if you think about a loaf of bread or pint of beer, but doesn't seem relevant to today's record prices.

[Guest miff]

If Fags were 25p for 20 then £5 got you 25 packets

Fags are now £5 a packet so 25 pkts would cost you £125

Same can be done for beer, or petrol for the scoot,

Thats just looking at it from an 18 year lads olds point of view

So were £5 in 1978 = £20 in 2006 I can not see

[Stateside]

I sold a mint copy of Patrice Holloway -"Love and Desire" issue copy on UK Capitol in 76 for £40 and bought it again on a UK demo for £200 last year so not that much of an investment if I'd kept it. I would have made more if I had stuck it in the building society for 30 yrs.................

[Guest James Trouble]

Dearest James. The cost of living is made up of a number of factors. Inflation being one that affect it. It isn't the only indicator. Some of the factors are goods and services depending on where you live, food, clothing, household goods, transportation and entertainment. A tight wad, like myself, has a lower cost of living cos I'm always first out of the car and last one to the bar.

Warren, you're a bit confused there old chap. Inflation has a number of different elements, and there are different schools of thought on how to 'formulate' an official figure. For example do you use RPI, RPI-X, HCPI etc etc. However, all the factors you have mentioned are used to caculate these inflation figures. An inflation figure is made up of a 'basket' of goods, each one weighted differently, and officials revise this basket on a regular basis to reflect consumer patterns.

What you are talking about is you propensity to consume, not the cost of living. Your propensity to consume does not effect the value of your £14 in 1978.

What Stateside said is spot on, I think alot of people are confusd about what their records were and are worth now. Like all things in th world, records can go up and down in value, especially when compared to the performance of other assets.

[jonbuck]

What you are talking about is you propensity to consume, not the cost of living. Your propensity to consume does not effect the value of your £14 in 1978.

And Not forgeting That in 1978 Petrol was only about 50 pence a Gallon.....& how much is that now ????

Jon Buck

[soulsalmon]

June 1976;(still got the wage slip!)

Income(definate)

Net pay £18.65

Expenditure (from memory)

£5.00-Mum

£4.00-Gear

£0.75-petrol for my Puch Maxi

£0.50-petrol money for a lift to the nighter

£0.30-Brut

£5.00-Pub & Soul Night money for the week........

£ whatevers left-Records or Clothes

Thursday-(Hit Mum for a Sub)

£2.00-More Gear.

And so began the downward spiral

So you had the other puch maxi collectors item now mate,i still get the piss taken 30 yrs on,mine was a wd

[paultp]

An inflation figure is made up of a 'basket' of goods, each one weighted differently, and officials revise this basket on a regular basis to reflect consumer patterns.

As I said on another thread, time they had black pudding and lard in the basket!

Mikey knows best but Miffs is the best answer so far.

I don't think you can be too precise with this, I think a better indicator would be to look at general equivalence. On the "what/when was your first 100 quid record" thread, someone said they had spent a weeks wages on a record. So if your weeks wages then was 30 quid and an equivalent job now has wages of 300 quid a week then I would suggest that 14 quid = 140 now.

Possibly

Edited July 13, 2006 by paultp

[Guest in town Mikey]

We are allocated 5 mins internet time at wotk now. Somebody must have been on websites all day!!

If you are still interested in prices then and now:

OK Click on this link for average prices from 1947

https://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=14207

At the bottom of the page next to a red triangle, click on average prices 1947 -2004.

It will have average prices (really??) of selected goods. Mostly food, but veg and fags and beer etc

For the latest average prices (May 2006) Go to

https://www.statistics.gov.uk/rpi

Select Focus on Consumer Prices (2nd red arrow down on right hand side)

Open the latest and choose the average prices page. I think its the second or third section.

Enjoy reminiscing.

Mike

[SteveM]

And Not forgeting That in 1978 Petrol was only about 50 pence a Gallon.....& how much is that now ????

Jon Buck

Fifty pence is still fifty pence Jin

[Mark Jones]

Bought John Bowie for £3 in 1986 at TOTW Stafford. that was even cheap then...shoulda been £25 quid at least! Still got it too!

[Tomangoes]

The real value is determined by 'supply and demand'

Even today a forgotten £10 record can fetch £100 if it takes off on the dancefloor.

Ebay is a classic guide to this scenario. How many topics on this forum have led by 'who paid this much for that record'.

Ed

[Guest Bearsy]

Fifty pence is still fifty pence Jin

[pikeys dog]

Arrr....

In 1978 the only thing that interested me was the Beano and a packet of KP Skips - all in for 10p

Yarr, Jim Laaad