The Amazing Purchasing Power of Silver – 1964 vs. Today

Most of us have either told or heard those tales of yesteryear about how you could get a hamburger for a dime, or a gallon of gas for a quarter. This was the reality in 1964!

Of course, these nostalgic facts become a bit slanted once you take income into account – in 1964, the average wage was only $6000 per year. While there are a lot of sources documenting the decline of the dollar, there really isn’t much out there illustrating the rise of silver relative to purchasing power.

A recent piece in Silver Enthusiast though breaks down how much things cost back in 1964 in both dollars and silver and compares these numbers to today.  If a person held onto a stash of quarters and dimes from 1964 (extremely rare, we know), their purchasing power would have outpaced inflation many times over.

Consider the following scenarios:

• In 1964, it would take 10 dimes to buy 10 hamburgers at McDonald’s. Today, that same number of dimes would buy you approximately 20 hamburgers (value of coins = approx. $23, hamburger = $0.99 each)

• At around $0.25 per gallon in 1964, it would have cost you 13 quarters to fill up a 12-gallon tank. Today, you could buy 20 gallons of gas with the same number of quarters (value of coins = approx. $75, cost of gas = $3.70/gallon).

When we get into houses and cars, which are by far the two most expensive items an ordinary person will buy in their lifetime, the differences between 1964 and today are even more staggering.

• In 1964, a new car cost $3500 on average. Let’s say you had 3500, silver dollars from back then. Today, a new car with an average cost of over $30,000 will only require you to give up around 1000 of those silver dollars!
• The average cost for a home in 1964 was $19,000, which required 15,000 ounces of silver ($1.30/oz) to purchase. Today, you would only have to give up 9,000 ounces of your stash – and that’s even after you factor in the average cost of a home now being $263,000. At $32/oz, your 15k ounces of silver is worth roughly $480,000!!

Of course, these scenarios are really just theoretical in the end.

Many Americans held pre-’64 silver dimes, quarters and so on because they expected the metal to increase in value, and because it was actually illegal for Americans to own gold bullion at that time. During the Great Depression, all gold bullion was confiscated by the U.S. Government, and owning gold for investment purposes was not allowed again until the 1970s.

In 1964, 15,000 ounces of silver (at $1.30/oz) was worth roughly 3-times the average salary of $6000/year.

Today, 3-times the average income equals roughly $150,000 while the silver is worth almost a half a million!

This fact alone shows that silver has not only kept pace with inflation, it has covered it several times over again.

It’s fascinating to compare the purchasing power of silver from then to now.

What will be even more interesting is when today’s silver bullion investors make these comparisons 20, 30 or 40 years from now.

We’re big fans of silver, as you can probably tell from roaming around our website, and pre-1964, 90% junk silver coins are some of or favorites. Not only do these coins offer a great way to save silver for an emergency or barter situation, the precious metal within them, as you can see, helps preserve and even enhance your purchasing power over the long-term.