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An economist approach; you need to find the price of some good that can be compared to a similar good today - not easy given the rather different consumption patterns of the 1570s compared to today. A good approach is to look at agricultural labourers wages; the Minimum Wage in the UK today, which agric labourers would get, is about £6 an hour. In 1570 an agric labourer would get 3 stuivers a day, or 18 a week. At 20 stuivers per Guilder that's a wage of 0.9 G a week, or 45 G a year (the map cost 6.5 G). However the standard of living of an agric labourer in 1570 was somewhat lower than todays agric labourers enjoy, so that 45 G a year was more equivalent to what you'd get today on an annual wage of £6,000 (Euro 7,000, US$ 10,000 - I think the Minimum Wage, at market exchange rates, is not dissimilar in all these countries). So 45 1570-Guilders was worth £6,000 today; 1 1570-Guilder was then worth £ 133.33, and the map was worth £866, or nearly 1,000 Euros, in today's prices. Hope this helps - probably other maphisters will have other conversion methodologies, Dr Hillary Shaw School of Business, Management and Marketing Harper Adams University College Newport Shropshire TF10 8NB -----Original Message----- From: Sebastian Diaz Angel <[email protected]> To: maphist <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, 26 May 2011 23:36 Subject: [MapHist] Query: Ortelius' Theatrumoriginal cost This is a MapHist list message (when you hit 'reply' you're replying to the whole list) o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + o + Dear Maphistlist Does anyone knows how much did the Theatrum Orbis terrarum originally costed in nowadays currencies? In Imhof (1998) the price of the Theatrum (1570) are in guilders: the price per copy was 6 guilders, 10 stuivers" does anyone knows how to convert these currencies? thanks in advance Sebastian Diaz www.razoncartografica.com _______________________________________________ MapHist: E-mail discussion group on the history of cartography hosted by the Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht. The statements and opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Utrecht. The University of Utrecht does not take any responsibility for the views of the author. List Information: http://www.maphist.nl Maphist mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.geo.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/maphist
_______________________________________________ MapHist: E-mail discussion group on the history of cartography hosted by the Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht. The statements and opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Utrecht. The University of Utrecht does not take any responsibility for the views of the author. List Information: http://www.maphist.nl Maphist mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.geo.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/maphist
