Gaslight Credit rating

[werecorpse]

Can someone help me out with an idea of what a cash and assets table for credit rating would look like in the gaslight era?

I’ve got Cthulhu Throughout the Ages but the table in there seems very out of whack with a CR 10 1890’s character having a yearly income of £100 (equivalent to $500) which is more than the annual income of a character with a CR of 89 in the 1920’s ($445).

Is there anything else out there?

[Squaredeal Sten]

IiRC the 1870s through 90s was a period of deflation in the U.S., due to adoption of tbe gold standard.  

[werecorpse]

I found a website that tracks buying power of $100 from 1887. It says that the slight deflation from 1887 went on for about 10 years before slight inflation returned such that the buying value of $100 in 1887 was about the same as it was in 1908. By 1919 the buying value of $100 was about halved (so $50) for the 1920’s until the end of that decade when due to deflation again it went up to maybe $75 in the early 30’s taking until mid 40’s to go back again to about half.

All this means I’ll use the core rulebook credit rating table and just divide by 2 to show 1890’s and then 5 to show pounds. Meaning a quite convenient divide the given numbers by 10 to reflect value in pounds. 

[Spence]

On 1/15/2023 at 6:19 AM, werecorpse said:

I found a website that tracks buying power of $100 from 1887. It says that the slight deflation from 1887 went on for about 10 years before slight inflation returned such that the buying value of $100 in 1887 was about the same as it was in 1908. By 1919 the buying value of $100 was about halved (so $50) for the 1920’s until the end of that decade when due to deflation again it went up to maybe $75 in the early 30’s taking until mid 40’s to go back again to about half.

All this means I’ll use the core rulebook credit rating table and just divide by 2 to show 1890’s and then 5 to show pounds. Meaning a quite convenient divide the given numbers by 10 to reflect value in pounds. 

Awesome info.  Any way you can post a link?

 

Edit: Nevermind, I found it 🙂

Edited January 24, 2023 by Spence

[Darius West]

AFAIK during this period, automobiles are generally more expensive than houses.

[EricW]

On 2/15/2023 at 10:51 PM, Darius West said:

AFAIK during this period, automobiles are generally more expensive than houses.

A lot of people rode motorbikes to keep costs down. My grandpa used to pile a family of 5 on an old BSA with side car (not the bike below). BSA started producing motorbikes in 1911, and were wildly successful. There were also plenty of attempts to motorise pushbikes before this - all sorts of weird and wonderful contraptions, including steam powered pushbikes, some of which might have been available to PCs. Every town had tinkerers who could supply something unusual. 

1911 BSA



1868 Steam Pushbike - Roper Steam Velocipede.

Don't underestimate these contraptions, they were slower than today's vehicles but they revolutionised personal transport, you could travel hundreds of miles on one. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by EricW

[Darius West]

On 2/17/2023 at 1:08 PM, EricW said:

you could travel hundreds of miles on one. 

Assuming you had a cast iron @ss.

[EricW]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Assuming you had a cast iron @ss.

Or a cushion 🙂

[Darius West]

52 minutes ago, EricW said:

Or a cushion 🙂

Hundreds of miles on a loose cushion on a motorbike saddle?   If that were the case, everyone who ever rode a horse would use a cushion instead of getting monstrously saddle sore.  I have strong doubts.

[EricW]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Hundreds of miles on a loose cushion on a motorbike saddle?   If that were the case, everyone who ever rode a horse would use a cushion instead of getting monstrously saddle sore.  I have strong doubts.

You forget this was the age of DIY - they made everything themselves. Shops sold needle, thread, cloth and leather, only rich people bought already made clothes. My grandma made their clothes and repaired curtains and made cushions. My grandpa made his rocking chair, and other chairs, fixed the table, even rigged up a hot water system which circulated water through coper pipes he braised himself, which ran through the back of their wood stove in their kitchen.

When the motorbike needed a new part, like when the clutch lever broke, I saw him make it. He sat by the fireplace whittling mild steel with a small cold chisel. Each cut with that cold chisel only abraded the tiniest shaving, almost too small to see, but over a few months the new lever took form.

He even built his own air conditioner, a huge evaporative machine. It was enormous and noisy, but it worked, and made a gun with the most beautiful action you ever saw, though he deliberately made the barrel undersize so it could only shoot blanks, back when such guns were legal.

So if they needed a comfortable cushion, they'd make it and keep adjusting it until it was right :-).

Edited February 20, 2023 by EricW

[Cloud64]

3 hours ago, EricW said:

When the motorbike needed a new part, like when the clutch lever broke, I saw him make it. He sat by the fireplace whittling mild steel with a small cold chisel. Each cut with that cold chisel only abraded the tiniest shaving, almost too small to see, but over a few months the new lever took form.

So if they needed a comfortable cushion, they'd make it and keep adjusting it until it was right :-).

My grandad was a blacksmith at the local gasworks. I'm told that on Sundays the local bikers would come up and affix the custom parts he'd made for them. This was the 1920s and 30s. Also built his own garage out of decommissioned kiln bricks from the gasworks (still in use today), and the family wireless sets too. I'm told I take after him, but practical I am not, though I did get the motorbike bug. Sadly, never got to meet him as the big C got him first. 
 

6 hours ago, Darius West said:

Hundreds of miles on a loose cushion on a motorbike saddle?   If that were the case, everyone who ever rode a horse would use a cushion instead of getting monstrously saddle sore.  I have strong doubts.

Want to do 100s of miles on a motorbike, then you'll want decent cushioning. There's a solid market for after-market motorbike seats with extra padding to this day. Trust me, as someone who's done plenty of bike miles, often 5 days a week 10+hrs a day in my dispatchy days, or when touring, a little bit of extra padding is worth its weight in gold. 

[Darius West]

11 hours ago, Cloud64 said:

Want to do 100s of miles on a motorbike, then you'll want decent cushioning. There's a solid market for after-market motorbike seats with extra padding to this day. Trust me, as someone who's done plenty of bike miles, often 5 days a week 10+hrs a day in my dispatchy days, or when touring, a little bit of extra padding is worth its weight in gold. 

I totally agree.  Have to seen the saddle on that old bike example tho?