Value

There are certain things that were not better in the old days though they may have had character or built character. Most houses were drafty because of poor or no insulation, single pane windows, inefficient heating systems and so on. Bath tubs were hard and cold glazed cast iron with showers a later add-on. Shampoo bottles were made of glass and they would shatter if dropped onto the hard tub surface.

Some things were better back then. Police cars had big domed flashing lights on their roofs, cherry-tops. You could spot one a mile away. Now-a-days the lights are visor or grill lights, sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

Another thing I really liked about the old days was the silver dollar. When I was a kid and did something notable I was often rewarded with a silver dollar. A silver dollar had much more character than paper money. A silver dollar had weight and when it was in your pocket you knew it was there. When you collected a few of them you really had a collection. They were artful and they had a bell-like ring to them when dropped on a hard surface.

There are new smaller dollar coins presently in circulation. They are roughly the size of quarters and have a golden mist of a color to them. They replaced the Susan B. Anthony coins which were a dismal failure.

The old silver dollars were and still are a coin of quality and value. When you had one or some you felt the value of it immediately. I now realize what the old timers were saying when they protested the change over from silver certificates to Federal Reserve notes. Once our dollar bills were promissory certificates for silver. You could take a silver certificate paper bill into a bank and walk out with the equivalent value of silver. When the Federal Reserve made paper money into reserve notes the value could now fluctuate with the world market not the precious metals market. There was no longer a precious metal to hold a value. So let’s say you have a silver certificate dollar from the 30’s; as of 1968 they could only be exchanged reserve notes, so unless you sell them to a collector you will get only one dollar for them. However if you had a silver dollar from back in the day the value of the silver is now around $40; collectors may pay more depending upon the quality and rarity of the coin.

Seeing what has happened to the value of our money over the last three decades makes me wonder why this devaluation is acceptable to so many. Times were once a lot better for the value of our money and it makes me realize that the true value is not in money, but rather in barter.