Spouse and I went out and about today. She hit me up with some serious nostalgia: Remember when Mc hambergers cost 0.29 cent. I had to reply that a cup of coffee in the 50's cost one thin dime. Seeing as she is a child of the sixties, the one thin dime didn't resonate. But when she picked up the tab at the Local Pancake joint and coffee was $4.50 each, she began to query me more about Old Timer Prices. So I gave her a close to Indernanna memory, hand pumping the gas on the Crown Point town square and letting it gravity feed One gallon at a time for 0.18 cent a gallon. Anyone got any Old Timer memories when Dimes, Nickles, and Pennies mattered that Y'all would care to share?
One thin dime, how much can it buy?
- Thread starter M118LR
- Start date
A lot of items on this menu that "one thin dime could buy." From the late 50s early 60s. These were the prices when I first went to McDs in1961 while stationed at Forbes AFB Topeka, Kansas. But at that time my pay was $80.00 per month.
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Had a buddy that worked at Jack in the Box. We mostly went there. Free food was always a plus.
Yep, coffee was a dime -- including refills -- and cigarettes and gasoline were twenty-four cents.
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- Alabama, in the bend of the Tennessee River
I do remember when you could go to McDonald's or Jack's (its an Alabama thing) and get two regular burgers, fries, and a small Coke and get some change back from a dollar bill.
protoolman
Service-Sixer
As a teenager I got a job at a recreation center cleaning up 2 hours a day on Fridays and Saturdays it paid $2 an hour and all the fountain root beer and jelly donuts I could eat on duty.
Yaworski
Hawkeye
You could get to see Little Egypt!
Yaworski
Hawkeye
I recall phone calls for a dime.
DGW1949
Hawkeye
That's the difference in real (silver) money and today's air-bucks.
To put that into perspective, the amount of silver in a pre-1964 dime is worth slightly over $5.04 in today's so-called "money".
Source:
https://www.coinflation.com/coins/1946-1964-Silver-Roosevelt-Dime-Value.html
So ya see, it ain't that a McDonalds burger has got higher, it's that your fake money is rapidly loosing it's buying power...And that's also why people used to do quite well back when they was making only $50-$60 a week. It was real money.
DGW
To put that into perspective, the amount of silver in a pre-1964 dime is worth slightly over $5.04 in today's so-called "money".
Source:
https://www.coinflation.com/coins/1946-1964-Silver-Roosevelt-Dime-Value.html
So ya see, it ain't that a McDonalds burger has got higher, it's that your fake money is rapidly loosing it's buying power...And that's also why people used to do quite well back when they was making only $50-$60 a week. It was real money.
DGW
DGW1949
Hawkeye
....."Jack's (its an Alabama thing)".....
We got those in Mississippi too. They are the only drive-through burger joints that I know of that have baloney sandwiches on the menu.
DGW
Phone calls for a dime, gas at $0.25 a gallon, cheeseburgers at $0.35 and fries another $0.15. Bought my first new car two days before my wedding, a new 1966 VW Beetle for $1,900 out the door including license plate, title and sales tax. Good times.
Yaworski
Hawkeye
Lah me . . . money is whatever we decide money is. If everyone agreed, we could use used Keurig cups as money. Silver and gold only have value because we believe they have value.
My Dad would send me on my bike to the gas station with a gallon gas can and a quarter which would at that time fill the can. It was an adventure for me at 8 or 9.
Yaworski
Hawkeye
Now he'd go to jail for child endangerment.
justshootin
Bearcat
And if he smoked, he might have ya pick up a pack of camels or luckys
themousethatroared
Single-Sixer
In order to preserve the memory of the penny for future geberations, I have requested that the dime be renamed to:
"The Tenny Penny Thingy".
Counting ten cent coins shall be done in the following manner:
"One tenny penny thingy, two tenny penny thingies, three tenny penny thingies, four tenny penny thingies, five tenny penny thingies, six tenny penny thingies, seven tenny penny thingies, eight tenny penny thingies, nine tenny penny thingies, ten tenny penny thingies."
"The Tenny Penny Thingy".
Counting ten cent coins shall be done in the following manner:
"One tenny penny thingy, two tenny penny thingies, three tenny penny thingies, four tenny penny thingies, five tenny penny thingies, six tenny penny thingies, seven tenny penny thingies, eight tenny penny thingies, nine tenny penny thingies, ten tenny penny thingies."
I was going to post "one thin dime, one tenth of a dollar, step right up and see Little Egypt" and you beat me to it!
The lady below was a family friend, Sally Rand, I met as a 12 year old kid. Her entertaining paid for a very nice home and she was a gracious hostess.
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Yaworski
Hawkeye
It shows our age.
John in WYO
Single-Sixer
As a kid, when given smallchange, many adults would say now, dont spend all that on candy. Dad would say, now dont spend all that On One Piece of candy. I suppose, it meant, get something you can share...
fiasconva
Blackhawk
Dad would send me to grocery store with a quarter to buy him a pack of cigarettes. I'd have a few pennies left over to buy me some pieces of bubble gum.
Yaworski
Hawkeye
I remember the days when 7-11 and Circle K had canisters of pretzel rods and licorice on the counter for a penny each. No wrappers, just reach in and grab one.
How is it no one posted this yet.
Born in 53, I remember only once buying a Coke for a Nickle & ya had to drink it there & return the bottle, or it was an extra 2 cents.
Pay phone was 5c up to the late 60's.
In 1970 I pumped Shell regular gas for .32.9. Hi-test for .35.9. The no name gas south of town sold gas for .29.9. I was making a buck & a quarter an hour.
You could get 10 minutes on a parking meter for a penny.
Pay phone was 5c up to the late 60's.
In 1970 I pumped Shell regular gas for .32.9. Hi-test for .35.9. The no name gas south of town sold gas for .29.9. I was making a buck & a quarter an hour.
You could get 10 minutes on a parking meter for a penny.
Armybrat
Hunter
I did the same to help at my grandpa’s auto repair garage during summertime visits in rural Missouri in the early 1950s.
The pump is at the left.
Grandma ran the little cafe behind it. Her burgers were a dime, a Coke was 7 cents. (Free for us grandsons)
Ah, someone mentioned that golden year of the first Corvette! There have been a few references to how things were. So to remincse, Summers at the farm but winter was in the city so that Catholic Schools could be attended. Mom would give me a written letter to hand to Mike at Mike's Deli and Mike would load me up with cigarettes, lunch meats, etc whatever and then I'd take another note to Vito's butcher shop and he'd load me up with the weeks Dinner Meats. Milk was delivered on the porch every Tuesday mourning and every Tuesday when Dad got home at 1700 I'd get my comeuppance for opening all the bottles and drinking the cream off the top. Didn't matter that I replaced the pogs, might have been worse if I didn't? Nowadays they have so many laws against all that it's mind boggling. Life was so much simpler in the 50's. Still, dragging that radio flyer through the snow to deliver all the newspapers on my route before the sun came up built character, at least that's what Dad used to tell me. LOL. With ethic started long before child labor laws way back then ? 
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Pogs not Pigs
.Pogs not Pigs
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akbluz
Blackhawk
For one thin dime you could mail 3 letters @.03 each and have enough left over to mail a penny postcard.
Broadway song, "we're in the money!" Was a grubby ol dime they didrnt know what it was until it got cleaned up a bit.
Moving up, theres cris ledoux's workingmans dollar, and merle haggard's are the old days really over for good, and rainbow stew, and mel tellis' sawmill dollar, and waylon's clyde, and theres clint holmes' playground in my mind, and the old question, hey, buddy, can ya spare a dime.
