Relative purchasing power of various goods through history

[Academia Nut]

This is a bit of a weird question spurred by a comment in the SDN in the Sea of Time thread where it was mentioned that we could harvest salt from the sea and make out like bandits if we were to trade it to Bronze Age civilizations. Setting aside the logistics of that, it triggered a thought in my mind. I know that salt was incredibly valuable throughout history up until the modern age and empires rose and fell upon its fortunes, but just how much say was a pound of salt worth really? And more importantly, how did that compare with other commodities and trade goods? I know that there are ancient merchant chronicles (to say nothing of more recent ones) where they talk about the sorts of goods they transported and what they sold them for, but is there any sort of place where the value of these goods have been examined, particularly against the economic activity of peasant farmers at the time.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is "Should I find myself hurled through time, how hard would it be to make a killing on salt (or other basic things I know how to obtain) production and sales?"

[Samuel]

There is a ton of goods you could try this with. Steel, aluminum, sugar, chocolate, pornography, etc.

[Academia Nut]

Steel

Unless you know a lot about steel production, particularly earlier forms, this wouldn't be the best industry to start up with. The fact that you know that there are easier ways to produce better steel could be useful if you have lots of spare money lying around to play around with though

aluminum

Even worse than steel because you need electricity to work with it because of aluminum's ridiculous affinity for oxygen

sugar

Not bad, although probably harder to start up because you have to find the right plants and then start cultivation

chocolate

Also not bad, although even trickier than sugar. I suppose along this same vein coffee could be added in

pornography

I suddenly have the image of a guy bringing in Renaissance painting and printing techniques to mass produce porn feauturing perspective and the like and then selling to Bronze Age tribes. It amuses me somehow. I suppose another relatively easy one to start with if you're near an ocean would be glass.

Still, that sort of drifted off from the sort of topic I had in mind, although if anyone knows how those goods related to each other, one could figure out a sort of 'relative effort' index to see how much work you would have to put into producing 'start-up' capital throughout history. Plus I'm just plain curious as to how much various goods we consider basic were worth throughout history.

[Zixinus]

If you want the hardest per-pound value, jewels, easily-worked metals (one of gold's original worth: its relatively easy to work with once you purify it enough) and of course, spices. There are spices, pepper in particular, that can preserve meat just as well as salt and spices are made by plants, hence no mining is required just a good knowledge of botany. Actually, if you have the resources to do it, you can make a killing just by selling certain herbs alone as some were highly valued (pepper was used even as a method of payment in the medieval days of the merchant city of Champagne).

In stone or bronze age terms though, I think you would make the most of the killing by using superior trading ships with better navigation ability than what would be available to your competition. Odds are, that you can figure out how to make a killing by selling just average fruit here and there.

I suddenly have the image of a guy bringing in Renaissance painting and printing techniques to mass produce porn feauturing perspective and the like and then selling to Bronze Age tribes. It amuses me somehow.

I think it would be boon to humanity as a whole if you would do it.

[LadyTevar]

Remember, one of the reasons Columbus sailed West was to find the way to India and profit from the spice trade.

[Academia Nut]

Well, I was thinking of if you only had to start with the clothes on your back and the knowledge in your skull, because I'm pretty sure even I could just bring back my spice cabinet I could probably set myself up for life in one of the more upscale Bronze Age civilizations just by taking the initial windfall and investing aggressively from there.

For academically, I suppose I'm looking for anything more academic like "Trader Bob brought in X pounds of salt from the sea and got Y amount of money" and then just how much Y amount of money was actually worth at the time. I suppose that's a bit esoteric, but I was just suddenly wondered what the economics were actually like.

[Zixinus]

Actually, you could make a whopper just by having enough knowledge of agricultural engineering: producing high-yield crops way before their time. Food is always needed and welcome.

[Thanas]

No, you couldn't. Because you can't engineer the crops at the time to produce high yields.

[Zixinus]

No, you couldn't. Because you can't engineer the crops at the time to produce high yields.

Perhaps not modern high-yield crops, certainly. But with enough knowledge, crops and fruit yielding more than neighbourhood tribes.

[Thanas]

That difference would be miniscule, because the crops there had little yield. Google Emmer for an example. It was the main crop of the Roman era. Now, how high do you think the chances of you improving it significantly in an area that has not had thousands of years to develop something as inefficient as Emmer?

[Flameblade]

That difference would be miniscule, because the crops there had little yield. Google Emmer for an example. It was the main crop of the Roman era. Now, how high do you think the chances of you improving it significantly in an area that has not had thousands of years to develop something as inefficient as Emmer?

Which lends itself to the idea of bringing back modern high-yield grains, though this is quickly reaching into alternate history territory.

To the original subject of the thread:
When looking at the relative purchasing power of things throughout history, I would recommend comparing the value of the good to the normal values of staple foods (outside of famines, of course).