Money throughout Virginia History

• 1618 - Robert Offley, Jr. invested £112 in the Virginia Company.
• 1663 - Thomas Matthews purchased land for 18,000 pounds of tobacco.
• 1785 - William Dameron, Jr. sold land for £30.
• 1852 - Leroy Oldham Dameron valued an ox at $12 and an ox-cart at $10.
• 1923 - Robert Early Bush requested a $600 gravestone.

Most of the historical documents on this site relate to money in some way, property deeds are usually well persevered in county courthouses and wills usually lay out amounts that different heirs will receive. When I see these figures I often wonder what the dollar amount means about the person - were they rich or poor relatively speaking, was it a major expense or just a normal business transaction? I hoped to lay out a table where different amounts could be compared across time but finding modern day equivalents to these amounts has been a much harder task than I imagined. The following figures and tables contain only a narrow possibility of the translated value for some of the reasons outlined below.

The British pound, shilling and pence came to Virginia along with the colonists. Limited access to currency led to the rise of a commodity-currency system based on tobacco. When the price of tobacco became unstable the colony began issuing bank notes in pounds, shillings and pence that were valued less than equally marked British currency. The current system of US dollars and cents was introduced in 1792 but many transactions continued to be done in pounds until the mid-1800's.

In addition to considering the many types of currency exchanged throughout the history of Virginia, inflation also has to be taken into account. The US government's official tool to calculate inflation is the Consumer Price Index, which has only been recorded since 1914, but has been estimated further back. Using simple CPI it can be calculated that the $600 gravestone in 1923 would cost about $9,000 in 2019. But the comparison is not that straight forward when you include factors like changes to the gross domestic product per capita or the average amount consumers spend year to year. Several on-line calculators include those factors plus many other formulas and can value the gravestone between $7,000 and $20,0000. Using similar formulas the $22 ox and cart from 1852 could be valued between $525 and $720 in 2019.

Economists calculate the relative worth of wealth differently than that of consumer goods. An investment like the £112 from 1698 could today be valued at as much as £5.9 million ($7.6 million USD) given the inflation value of the pound and the current US exchange rate. The 1785 deed for £30 called for "current money of Virginia" versus pounds of sterling. In the British system the pound was based on the value of one pound of sterling silver. Each pound was made of 20 shillings, and each shilling was made of 12 pence. Values could be written as £33 15s 8d or £33.15.08 or 33/15/8. Sometimes pounds were called sovereigns and shillings called bob. Other British coins were; the half-sovereign (10 shillings); crown (5 shillings); half-crown (2 shillings 6 pence); tanner (6 pence); thruppence (3 pence); tuppence (2 pence); ha’penny (half pence); and farthing (quarter pence). Virginia pounds were generally valued at about 75% of British pounds. £30 in 1785 could be valued between $3,300 and $51,000 today depending on which calculation is used and the relative value of the Virginia pound at the time.

The value of tobacco may be the most difficult to translate. In 1619 the Virginia legislature set the price high-quality tobacco at three shillings per pound (probably based on the British pound at the time). In 1642 tobacco was declared as a legal tender in the colony and many fees and taxed where paid by the pound of tobacco. As more and more tobacco was grown the price continued to fall, by 1645 a pound of tobacco was valued at only one and a half pence and in 1665 to only one pence. In addition to the wide price fluctuations calculating the value of a pound of tobacco is further complicated by different measures the General Assembly took through the years to try an protect tobacco farmers from the price instability. In 1639 merchants were required to take 50 pounds of tobacco per 100 pounds of debt. In 1682 the price per pound was set at 1 1/5 pence for payment of debt and 2 pence for the payment of property taxes. From time to time many common fees were set to a fixed weight of tobacco and did not change with the monetary value. The 18,000 pound transaction in 1663 could today be valued anywhere between $14,800 and $3.1 million dollars based on the many currencies, exchange rates and methods of measuring inflation.

"Cecil Graham: What is a cynic?
Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham: And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.”

—Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan, 1892

The following tables present a very simplified reference for the purchasing power of 1 pound of tobacco, 1 British pound, 1 Virginia pound and 1 US dollar in 2019 US dollars through Virginia history. These values are likely at the low end of a range of values and are more useful as a comparison of trends over time than as a specific reference for any one particular instance.