A Day in 1900 NYC with out Double Gold Eagles
Double Gold Eagle coins are a representative of a huge amount of money, even now , but especially in the 1900's where a single double eagle coin would have been more money than many would make in a week's time.
Here is a neat example to visualize how much money a twenty dollar coin back in the early 1900's would get you. For our example let us strap on our history helmets and travel to New York City circa 1900-ish. First we will need a place to stay, with our single twenty dollar coin let us go on over to the Plaza Hotel, still popular even today. A one night's stay is going to run us a dollar and fifty cents($1.50). With that out of the way, I do not know about you but I am getting hungry, so let us go grab a beer and a sandwich next door; for another nickel ($0.05) we have lunch. Maybe you brought a sepcial someone on your trip to the big city and they want to see a Broadway show, so get out the coin purse again for another thirty five cents ($0.35).
So far, we have a place to stay, we have eaten our lunch, and now have plans for a show and we still have only spent, a grand total of $1.90! Well either before or after the show we will want to take our special guest to a nice dinner. So feeling pretty Rockefeller we head over to Delmonico's, where our combined meals would run us maybe another dollar ($1.00), give or take. Then after the show maybe we get a nightcap at the hotel lounge, so from our original double gold eagle coin worth twenty dollars ($20.00) we would now have about fifteen dollars ($15.00)left, with some other change. The next morning we have so much left over that the ridiculous price of the hotel breakfast is not going to stop us from getting it.
See, that is the buying power of gold, circa 1900. Even today though, gold coins are a great investment for our future plans. We obviously wouldn't head out to the local Burger King with a gold eagle in our pocket to buy lunch, but hey I think you get the idea here. Gold is good, then and now.
Double Gold Eagle, American Gold Eagle,
