Cost of a saber.... back in Qing dynasty?

Lew · 14th July 2010, 04:31 AM

My guess is 1-2 months salary depending on the smith's reputation. A village made piece would be less of course.

KuKulzA28 · 14th July 2010, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lew

My guess is 1-2 months salary depending on the smith's reputation. A village made piece would be less of course.

Wow, that seems like a decent amount. What makes you say that?

Lew · 14th July 2010, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KuKulzA28

Wow, that seems like a decent amount. What makes you say that?

Good smiths charged a premium for their work even back then. If a wealthy person who hired a body guard chances are they hired the best not some lacky off the street. A high paid professional would only want the best sword and they cost big $$$. We are not talking about mass produced weapons like a machete this would be simlar to a custom made knife today good ones go for $1200 and up so I figure one months salary should be in the ball park.

KuKulzA28 · 14th July 2010, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lew

Good smiths charged a premium for their work even back then. If a wealthy person who hired a body guard chances are they hired the best not some lacky off the street. A high paid professional would only want the best sword and they cost big $$$. We are not talking about mass produced weapons like a machete this would be simlar to a custom made knife today good ones go for $1200 and up so I figure one months salary should be in the ball park.

True, today's high quality knives do cost good money. Even high quality machetes and work blades cost a good 3-10x more than your $10 machete. Good points.

fearn · 15th July 2010, 12:41 AM

A couple more notes: There's the old claim that a knight's sword cost more than a peasant's yearly earnings. If you look at modern day peasants who live on $1-$2/day, and figure that a decent modern sword is around $500-600, you'll see that things really haven't changed much.

While I can't speak to 1800 swords, I've seen some very high quality 1900 era Chinese jian, and I would guess that there was the possibility of high quality weapons in earlier eras.

Third note. Back when I was a kid, I was into RPGs (the games, not the weapons

), and I learned a little trick. That trick is that gold tends to keep its value over time. If something cost a penny then and a dollar now, you can bet that gold's value has also increased 100-fold. This is not strictly true now (thanks to rampant speculation) but it's a good rough-and-ready estimate if you're in a hurry.

With the sword example above, price your item in gold (per gram, ounce, or whatever), find out what gold was valued at in your era of choice, and that will approximately be the value of your item back then. If you don't want to deal with gold, livestock also works fairly well, although I don't know what a pig or cow is selling for right now.

For example, a sword right now is selling at between about 0.3 and 1.0 troy ounces of gold, approximately ($250-$1000) (with better ones going for 2-3 troy ounces). What's that in 1800 Chinese money?

Best,

F

Vaarok · 15th July 2010, 05:43 AM

A cow's worth about a thousand dollars, and it's a pretty stable market value compared to inflation too. Pigs and chickens, however, are dirt cheap, and horses lost their market to the automobile.

The gold or loaf-of-bread trick both work well for calculating values.

14th July 2010, 04:31 AM	#1
Lew (deceased) Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: East Coast USA Posts: 3,191	My guess is 1-2 months salary depending on the smith's reputation. A village made piece would be less of course.

15th July 2010, 12:41 AM	#5
fearn Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,247	A couple more notes: There's the old claim that a knight's sword cost more than a peasant's yearly earnings. If you look at modern day peasants who live on $1-$2/day, and figure that a decent modern sword is around $500-600, you'll see that things really haven't changed much. While I can't speak to 1800 swords, I've seen some very high quality 1900 era Chinese jian, and I would guess that there was the possibility of high quality weapons in earlier eras. Third note. Back when I was a kid, I was into RPGs (the games, not the weapons ), and I learned a little trick. That trick is that gold tends to keep its value over time. If something cost a penny then and a dollar now, you can bet that gold's value has also increased 100-fold. This is not strictly true now (thanks to rampant speculation) but it's a good rough-and-ready estimate if you're in a hurry. With the sword example above, price your item in gold (per gram, ounce, or whatever), find out what gold was valued at in your era of choice, and that will approximately be the value of your item back then. If you don't want to deal with gold, livestock also works fairly well, although I don't know what a pig or cow is selling for right now. For example, a sword right now is selling at between about 0.3 and 1.0 troy ounces of gold, approximately ($250-$1000) (with better ones going for 2-3 troy ounces). What's that in 1800 Chinese money? Best, F

15th July 2010, 05:43 AM	#6
Vaarok Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 28	A cow's worth about a thousand dollars, and it's a pretty stable market value compared to inflation too. Pigs and chickens, however, are dirt cheap, and horses lost their market to the automobile. The gold or loaf-of-bread trick both work well for calculating values.