You Had To Be There

[cabinetman]

My first shop was in an industrial area and within blocks there must have been at least a dozen shops. Some of the ones that were in business had signs. You could really find these shops at night by just listening to the sounds, being like a tracking device in the still of the night.

In time, many woodworkers in the area got friendly, and would stop in at odd hours. I was one of the first in the area to get a router that was over 3HP. Somehow the word got out and every once in a while one of the guys would stop in to say hi and ask to see the monster. I guess their interest was to see if it was a Briggs & Stratton, or had exhaust pipes or a chrome air cleaner with a four barrel.

Those were the days before soft start. Every one of them had pretty much the same reaction. I would hand it to them to turn on and they would hold it in one hand and flick the switch with the other. Watching their arm twist, and the look on their face was priceless.

[gwyneth]

How much did it cost?

I can't write a coherent question, but I'm trying to get at how much more some things used to cost, even without adjusting the dollars, and wondering about the ground-breaking 3 hp router.

[cabinetman]

How much did it cost?

I can't write a coherent question, but I'm trying to get at how much more some things used to cost, even without adjusting the dollars, and wondering about the ground-breaking 3 hp router.

Up early again? IIRC, it was a 3.25HP Bosch and like all the "newer and bigger" introductions at the time was around $349, Just before that I purchased a Ryobi 2HP R330, which was the biggest and baddest for around $170. The Ryobi had a weird levered switch that let you hold onto both handles and operate the switch. It was a constant fix to keep intact. Funny thing though, I still have both routers, and they both still work great after 25+ years.

[Pappy]

Can't imagine strting a 3+ HP router without soft start. Even my little Rockwell 100 has a pretty good torque twist when you hit the switch.

[cabinetman]

Can't imagine strting a 3+ HP router without soft start. Even my little Rockwell 100 has a pretty good torque twist when you hit the switch.

Don

I might compare it to a gas powered earth augger with the handles...got an idea now.

[gwyneth]

IRC, it was a 3.25HP Bosch and like all the "newer and bigger" introductions at the time was around $349, Just before that I purchased a Ryobi 2HP R330, which was the biggest and baddest for around $170.

The price of the Bosch would be at least $500 in 2007 dollars.

"At least" is a vast understatement. Curious, I just found this terrific adjusted calculator at the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve. It's in a super-friendly format: if in (year between 1913 and 2007), you bought (no.) dollars of consumer goods, in (year between 1913 and 2007) they would cost (result).

The answer for the Bosch router purchased in 1982: a whopping $743.21!

Thanks, c-man, because without your post I never would have found the calculator at:

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/data/us/calc/
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis - Consumer Price Index Calculator

[cabinetman]

The price of the Bosch would be at least $500 in 2007 dollars.

"At least" is a vast understatement. Curious, I just found this terrific adjusted calculator at the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve. It's in a super-friendly format: if in (year between 1913 and 2007), you bought (no.) dollars of consumer goods, in (year between 1913 and 2007) they would cost (result).

The answer for the Bosch router purchased in 1982: a whopping $743.21!

Thanks, c-man, because without your post I never would have found the calculator at:

http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/data/us/calc/
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis - Consumer Price Index Calculator

That's a very interesting site, thanks for posting it. I'm bookmarking it. The price differential is mind boggling. What isn't taken into consideration is the "newness" or "instant popularity" factor of a product and its high price due to a new introduction of a product, and then through either competition or technology, the price eventually goes down. I always hate it when I'm at the beginning of the statistics.

[gwyneth]

That's a very interesting site, thanks for posting it. I'm bookmarking it. The price differential is mind boggling. What isn't taken into consideration is the "newness" or "instant popularity" factor of a product and its high price due to a new introduction of a product, and then through either competition or technology, the price eventually goes down. I always hate it when I'm at the beginning of the statistics.

Of course, it also doesn't take into account the falling price of virtually anything that uses electricity, and the exponential reduction of technology costs would be almost impossible to calculate.

All we can do: in 1987 a 20 meg. hard drive (smaller than most photo flash cards today) cost $1,000--that would be $1808 today--compared to a 128 meg. photo card purchased in a grocery store for $14 a couple of months ago (the equivalent of $7.74 in 1987.)

In today's dollars, that's about $90 a meg compared to .14, or almost 100 times more expensive.