Okay, so I was looking at some old documents the other day and stumbled upon a reference to 100 British pounds. It got me thinking, “I wonder how much that would have been worth in US dollars back in, say, 1950?”
Figuring It Out
First, I needed to find the exchange rate between pounds and dollars in 1950. that’s not something readily available in, like, a current bank app!
I started digging around on some old financial websites and that kind of stuff.
And I got the exchange rate for 1950,It looks like 1 British pound was equal to about 2.80 US dollars.
Doing the Math
So, if 1 pound was $2.80, then 100 pounds would be:
- 100 pounds $2.80/pound = $280
Simple enough, right? 100 pounds in 1950 was equivalent to about $280.
Putting it in perspective
But that $280,what dose it mean? Is that a little or a lot?
I did try to search online to find a good way to represent the value.
Then $280 in 1950 had a significantly different purchasing power compared to today. It was a lot more money back then!
