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I am watching Deadwood and the cost of things seem extremely off/high am I missing something? Login/Join 
Raised Hands Surround Us
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posted
$20 a day for the corner lot to setup the hardware store according to the inflation calculator would be $519 in today’s money. That would be $15,570 a month!

A shovel is $10 that would be $259.50

What am I missing?


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The world's not perfect, but it's not that bad.
If we got each other, and that's all we have.
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You should know I'll be there for you!
 
Posts: 25344 | Registered: September 06, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
The Unmanned Writer
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Not familiar with the story but, is it a gold rush area or other "rush" type area?

If not, then the producer(s) / director just didn't do proper research or didn't want to believe how mush stuff didn't cost then.

I recall in the late 60s my mom could buy two weeks of food for $100 (family of five with three boys entering teenage years)







Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.



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Posts: 14020 | Location: It was Lat: 33.xxxx Lon: 44.xxxx now it's CA :( | Registered: March 22, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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1st episode takes place in 1876.
It’s an HBO series figured they would do a little better job on the details.


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The world's not perfect, but it's not that bad.
If we got each other, and that's all we have.
I will be your brother, and I'll hold your hand.
You should know I'll be there for you!
 
Posts: 25344 | Registered: September 06, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I remember from a field trip to the gold country of Ca. (Mid/late 70's) the museum lady explaining a "miners breakfast" as being 42$. Was a heck of a breakfast though, even included 2 bottles of beer!
I believe pinches of gold dust was the currency.
OZ
 
Posts: 158 | Registered: February 18, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
"Member"
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That is a big pet peeve of mine through all old western TV shows and movies.


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Posts: 21046 | Location: 18th & Fairfax  | Registered: May 17, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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There are at least a half a dozen gold rush episodes in U.S. history.

Dozens of merchants rushed too those very remote venues with many wagon loads of goods ,
Most of them did very very well.

Those traveling from the east , chasing a dream of wealth were barely prepared for the life in the middle of nowhere.

It was very common to pay a great many times more than usual in the very remote locations.

They paid what was asked or they went with out





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Posts: 54491 | Location: Henry County , Il | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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A $259 shovel? That must've been one of the first government contract shovels. Wink


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Posts: 3501 | Location: TX | Registered: October 08, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Speling Champ
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Those prices are largely correct for that time and place. The Gem Saloon brought in between $1000.00 and $2,000 a night. The Homestake Claim (the actual Claim/strike portrayed as owned by Alma Garrett) was sold for $70,000. The Bella Union did just as well as the Gem.

In fact the prices portrayed were about the only things the series got even remotely correct in most cases
 
Posts: 1603 | Location: Utah | Registered: July 06, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Maybe it was a form of the “company store” concept in place (where you were forced to buy supplies/food from one seller at inflated prices) there during the Gold Rush when there was easy money to be made and men were eager to get in on the action.

“Oh you want a shovel? Well, that’ll be $10”

“I don’t give a shit if it’s a dollar back East, do you want it or not?”

Found this which seems to support my theory:

The best way to get rich during the California Gold Rush was by selling mining pans for nearly $250 in today’s dollars and eggs for $92 each


 
Posts: 33580 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: November 12, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Very interesting. That is pretty wild.


————————————————
The world's not perfect, but it's not that bad.
If we got each other, and that's all we have.
I will be your brother, and I'll hold your hand.
You should know I'll be there for you!
 
Posts: 25344 | Registered: September 06, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Peace through
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Frankly, I don't think it matters much. Viewers aren't watching the show with an inflation calculator in hand.

Much about the show is inaccurate or inauthentic. The language is inauthentic. If the language were period-correct, all the characters would end up sounding like Yosemite Sam.
The fate of characters who were real people in Deadwood is often incorrect. The timing of events, such as the arrival of the Earp brothers has been altered, as has the timing of Seth Bullock's arrival and Bill Hickok's death; Bullock arrived in Deadwood only one day before Hickok was murdered. Seth Bullock did not pursue and capture Hickok's murderer, Jack McCall. Calamity Jane's relationship with Hickok is a complete lie.

In the 2019 Deadwood movie, Al Swearengen dies in his bed in Deadwood in 1889. In reality, Swearengen died on a Denver, Colorado street in 1904.

There's plenty more, but that should be enough to illustrate how much liberty the show's producers and writers took with the facts.


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Posts: 107239 | Registered: January 20, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I am only one episode deep and I did not realize how far from true timelines and events it strayed.
The language is extreme and I found myself doubting everyone spoke like that.
As for the money they said the prices and it seemed really really high and made me stop and wonder about it.


————————————————
The world's not perfect, but it's not that bad.
If we got each other, and that's all we have.
I will be your brother, and I'll hold your hand.
You should know I'll be there for you!
 
Posts: 25344 | Registered: September 06, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Speling Champ
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The series is absolutely worth watching.

The first two seasons are really good despite the historical inaccuracy. Deadwood is probably the most accurate portrayal of frontier life of that era in general despite those historical inaccuracies.

The third season Hearst plot line simply became too silly for me to enjoy.
 
Posts: 1603 | Location: Utah | Registered: July 06, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by Black92LX:
I am only one episode deep and I did not realize how far from true timelines and events it strayed.
The language is extreme and I found myself doubting everyone spoke like that.
As for the money they said the prices and it seemed really really high and made me stop and wonder about it.


Para has explained this before a couple times.

They didn't curse like that, but the modern cursing was substituted because the cursing and swear words of that era sound silly to modern ears. Everyone would have sounded like Yosemite Sam and the show would have been a joke.


 
Posts: 33580 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: November 12, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Peace through
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quote:
Originally posted by Black92LX:
The language is extreme and I found myself doubting everyone spoke like that.
They didn't. No one spoke like that, either in verbiage or degree of eloquence, but the dialogue is the best thing about the series. Someone once called the dialogue in Deadwood "hillbilly Shakespeare". I think that describes it quite nicely. Never has so much profane and hard language resulted in a thing so beautiful.

quote:
From its debut, Deadwood drew attention for its extensive profanity. It is a deliberate anachronism on the part of the creator with a twofold intent. Milch explained in several interviews that the characters were originally intended to use period slang and swear words. Such words, however, were based heavily on the time's deep religious roots and tended to be more blasphemous than scatological. Instead of being shockingly crude (in keeping with the tone of a frontier mining camp), the results sounded comical. As Geoffrey Nunberg put it "… if you put words like 'goldarn' into the mouths of the characters on Deadwood, they'd all wind up sounding like Yosemite Sam."

Instead, it was decided that the show would use current profanity in order for the words to have the same impact on modern audiences as the blasphemous ones did back in the 1870s.
In early episodes, the character of Mr. Wu excessively uses "cocksucker," his favorite derogatory term for those whom he dislikes. Wu is also fond of the Cantonese derogatory term "gweilo" which he applies to the camp's white males.

The other intent in regard to the frequency of the swearing was to signal to the audience the lawlessness of the camp in much the same way that the original inhabitants used it to show that they were living outside the bounds of "civil society."

I found the series Deadwood to be a delight and it remains one of my favorite TV series of all time- in the top ten for sure. When it originally aired on HBO, I could not wait for new episodes. To me, it's that good, and authenticity be damned.

I recommend you watch the entire series. I also recommend that you don't binge it. Watch perhaps two episodes a week. Make it last. The series was intended to have one more season but it never happened. The last shot of the last scene of the last episode offers tantalizing clues to what we never got, and the 2019 Deadwood movie was a tremendous disappointment, not the least reason for this being the inevitable PC horse shit which permeated it. As a matter of fact, I wish I hadn't seen the film. It was not true to the series.
 
Posts: 107239 | Registered: January 20, 2000Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Nullus Anxietas
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quote:
Originally posted by parabellum:
I found the series Deadwood to be a delight and it remains one of my favorite TV series of all time- in the top ten for sure.

Same here!



"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe
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Posts: 25999 | Location: S.E. Michigan | Registered: January 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Get my pies
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quote:
Originally posted by parabellum:

the 2019 Deadwood movie was a tremendous disappointment, not the least reason for this being the inevitable PC horse shit which permeated it. As a matter of fact, I wish I hadn't seen the film. It was not true to the series.



What didn't you like about it exactly? I recall feeling a little letdown myself and thought that they had let FAR too much time elapse between the last season and the movie (was like 15 years wasn't it?) and that clearly affected it.


 
Posts: 33580 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: November 12, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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