The Price of Nails Since 1695

> Why nails? They are a basic manufactured product whose form and quality have changed relatively little over the last three centuries

This is probably more true for nails than many other things. It also has problems when looking at the details with (older style) cut nails working better than wire nails in some applications but being more expensive. The article discusses these but I would have liked it if the article had tracked the price of cut nails to the present too.

Another amusing nail thing is that, despite the fluctuating price, nail sizes in the US are still typically given in pence (ie corresponding to the cost of the nails at some time in history) where eg a 4d nail is about 50% larger than a 2d nail in length and diameter.

> Why nails? They are a basic manufactured product whose form and quality have changed relatively little over the last three centuries

While 'somewhat' true, its also untrue.

Modern nails are different from the nails in the 60's.

Modern nails are rounded. Many of the 1960s nails are square with sharp edges, a completely different manufacturing technique. I imagine that these were either forged in shape or cut from square stock and mashed to a sharper point.

The 1960's nails also have a square head and were made of a weaker iron, but because of their square edges they 'cut' their way into the wood and didn't need to be as strong as rounded 'modern' nails.

Modern rounded nails are cut from a wire and a point is 'cut' into the edge and a head is crushed from the top of the wire.

Anyways.. things change, and i imagine they changed before the 1960's square nails too, I just don't know about them.

I hadn't realized how valuable and useful nails were until I toured Monticello, and there was a nailery out back. I.e. you couldn't just go buy a bag of nails, you had to make them yourself.

I found this to be an enlightening and fun article. The one negative I would flag is that it is US-centric and - while nails did not change much during that period - the US was created as a collection of states while being settled by colonizers. That was a very disruptive geographic phase.

It would probably be more useful to have run a similar study against Europe during this period. While the formation of nation states and the industrial revolution would be substantial socio-economic activities, the relative change was less.

According to Wikipedia’s history of nails, wire (round) nails came out in about 1860. I’ve lived in 4 houses built before 1930 That were all full of them. Cut nails continued to be used for masonry through the present.