Research Recommendations: Historical Currency Conversion
by Michael J. Leclerc
When researchers are dealing with old land and estate records, I am often asked “How much would that be worth today?” While Yahoo and other currency calculators are great at modern money, they often do not include the ability to convert values through time.
One great website is called “Historical Currency Conversions.” This website, available at http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp, is capable of converting many different kinds of currency to today’s dollars. Here you can convert dollars, cents, pounds, guineas, sovereigns, merk, mark, crowns, florins, shillings, groats, pence, and farthings into today’s money.
$8000 dollars in 1860 had the same buying power as $202,759.96 current dollars.
$11,200 dollars in 1860 had the same buying power as $283,863.95 current dollars.