Direct link (without email wall):
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w29617/w296...
The Price of Nails Since 1695
21–30 of 75 posts
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#22Reminds me of the price of nails in Tahiti in the 1770s.
https://theconversation.com/cook-commemorations-are-mute-on-...
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#23its quite fascinating what you can do with really simple tools. some nails, a hammer, a saw, a piece of string, a bubble level, and measurement tools. highly optimized tool set.
Lovely that you added the piece of string in there, that's about the most multi-functional tool there is. Plumbbob (using a large nail as weight!), level line, marker, fixture (and many others) all at once.
i agree, i couldve just made the statement about string alone.
was one of those big intellectual shocks. a whole world opened up when i got into building and learned about the many uses of string. much the same as when i learned to code.
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#24its quite fascinating what you can do with really simple tools. some nails, a hammer, a saw, a piece of string, a bubble level, and measurement tools. highly optimized tool set.
Lovely that you added the piece of string in there, that's about the most multi-functional tool there is. Plumbbob (using a large nail as weight!), level line, marker, fixture (and many others) all at once.
And far too valuable to discard frivilously - I heard a medieval historian bewailing the cinematic convention of cutting a prisoner's bonds when setting them free, basically "do they not know how many hours of work it took to make a good rope? Nobody poorer than Alexander the Great would go slashing knots!"
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lovely that you added the piece of string in there, that's about the most multi-functional tool there is. Plumbbob (using a large nail as weight!), level line, marker, fixture (and many others) all at once.
i agree, i couldve just made the statement about string alone. was one of those big intellectual shocks. a whole world opened up when i got into building and learned about the many uses of string. much the same as when i learned to code.
With the difference that in code, unlike building, there should only be one use for a string.
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lovely that you added the piece of string in there, that's about the most multi-functional tool there is. Plumbbob (using a large nail as weight!), level line, marker, fixture (and many others) all at once.
And far too valuable to discard frivilously - I heard a medieval historian bewailing the cinematic convention of cutting a prisoner's bonds when setting them free, basically "do they not know how many hours of work it took to make a good rope? Nobody poorer than Alexander the Great would go slashing knots!"
If a medieval artisan would see us discarding so much incredible stuff without a second's thought they would for sure believe us to be utterly mad. Quite possibly they'd be right.
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What about galvanized nails? Surely those did not exist even 150 years ago?
Galvanization is a process that happens after initial manufacturing of the nail. To get to that stage, it must already have been made by one of those two techniques.
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#28People who found this interesting may also be interested in historian David Hackett Fisher's book "The Great Wave". He examines the possible correlation of consumables prices to societal upheavals from the mid 1200s on.
I'm guessing the price of bread in 18c France plays a role?
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lovely that you added the piece of string in there, that's about the most multi-functional tool there is. Plumbbob (using a large nail as weight!), level line, marker, fixture (and many others) all at once.
And far too valuable to discard frivilously - I heard a medieval historian bewailing the cinematic convention of cutting a prisoner's bonds when setting them free, basically "do they not know how many hours of work it took to make a good rope? Nobody poorer than Alexander the Great would go slashing knots!"
was it Lindybeige? He has a bit on that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZfpQzV2GnM
Re: The Price of Nails Since 1695
#30I 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.
Once upon a time nails were valuable enough to be passed on to offspring in the estate of a deceased person. It was also pretty common to recycle them when taking something apart, not to remelt them but simply to re-use them after straightening.
> It was also pretty common to recycle them when taking something apart, not to remelt them but simply to re-use them after straightening.
When I was kid, my grandfather (born early 1920s in the southern US, so grew up in the Great Depression) had a coffee can in his shop where he'd put pulled nails, that I would get to hammer back straight. Good hammering practice!