Things you could order over 50 years ago that you can't order now !

[SouthernSky]

Cubs game. $1.00 for the grandstands, $2.00 for the bleachers.

And I disliked mustard and relish on the hotdogs.

 

[5030]

Plus they rode like an 8N Ford.

I beg to differ with you on that point. They might have been cruder but there are still a helluva lot of them around today. Still have my August 66 issue of Road and Track and on the back cover is a Shelby Mustang 500 KR fastback, white with blue racing stripes and centered exhaust for 3500 bucks. Should have bought one back than. Today they are worth about 400 grand in Bristol condition.

 

[Jstpssng]

I beg to differ with you on that point. They might have been cruder but there are still a helluva lot of them around today. Still have my August 66 issue of Road and Track and on the back cover is a Shelby Mustang 500 KR fastback, white with blue racing stripes and centered exhaust for 3500 bucks. Should have bought one back than. Today they are worth about 400 grand in Bristol condition.

That doesn't change a thing. A Shelby isn't exactly a run of the mill car, and if used by somebody as a daily driver it still would have needed regular attention to keep it going.

 

[ultrarunner]

You could order a bank savings or checking account without volumes of disclosures that sometimes all change in a couple of months..

I was 13 earning a weekly paycheck and the Bank of America branch manager said anyone with a regular paycheck is welcome to open an account… I had been going Friday’s after work just to cash my check but instead said OK and opened my account… no parents or co-signer!

 

[ultrarunner]

I beg to differ with you on that point. They might have been cruder but there are still a helluva lot of them around today. Still have my August 66 issue of Road and Track and on the back cover is a Shelby Mustang 500 KR fastback, white with blue racing stripes and centered exhaust for 3500 bucks. Should have bought one back than. Today they are worth about 400 grand in Bristol condition.

This is the car I road around in as a teen… it was owned by my uncles friend and Shelby GT350 number 1

And it was a daily driver for many years…

1966 SHELBY GT350 PROTOTYPE #001 - Vehicle | Barrett-Jackson Auction Company - World's Greatest Collector Car Auctions

www.barrett-jackson.com

 

[SouthernSky]

You could order a bank savings or checking account without volumes of disclosures that sometimes all change in a couple of months..

I was 13 earning a weekly paycheck and the Bank of America branch manager said anyone with a regular paycheck is welcome to open an account… I had been going Friday’s after work just to cash my check but instead said OK and opened my account… no parents or co-signer!

And in the late sixties or early seventies I was earning 7-8% on that passbook account.

 

[ultrarunner]

Once in awhile in the 70’s Dad would take us to an Italian resteraunt called Bertolas in Oakland where the menu was on a blackboard over the bar.

You could order Well Drinks at 50 cents, Call Drinks at 75 cents and Premium Drink for a buck…

Just something I remember as a kid… plus their hot bread with butter best ever…

 

[tallyho8]

1965 New Orleans area. My favorite bar had draft beer in frozen mugs for 15 cents. Gambling pinball machines were 5 cents. A brand-new stripped-down Mustang was $2222. Gas was 27.9 cents. Diesel was cheaper as was kerosene and mineral spirits. A 10 ounce returnable bottle Coke was 10 cents with a 2-cent deposit. A 6 pack of beer was 99 cents.
An old running car that might last you 10,000 miles before it goes kaput was $100. When it went kaput you towed it to another neighborhood and left it because scrap metal was worth nothing.

Prestigious jobs at that time were postman and bus driver and usually only went to well-educated white men. Drive-in movies were $1 each but we still hid a couple in the trunk. Pay phones were 5 cents. Gas station workers got $1 per hour to pump gas, check oil and tires and clean windshield and hand the person the right amount of S&H green stamps for their purchase. Crime was very low, and marijuana was unheard of in the suburbs.

Diapers were washable, milk was delivered, the daily paper was $2.20 a month and Dairy Queen ice cream cones were still 5 cents. All your friends were fighting in Viet Nam and some were coming back uninjured. I don't know how much interest banks were paying on deposits because I never had a spare quarter to my name.

 

[tree farmer]

In the 7th grade, the neighbor kid and I both got JC Higgens single shot .22 rifles for Christmas from our parents. We took them to school on the bus for show and tell when school started again after Christmas break. The bus driver made us sit in the front seat so he could keep an eye on us. I still have mine 63 years later....Dan.

 

[grsthegreat]

in Texas in the 1980's you could get a tall glass of Lonestar beer for $.25

and at that price it was still overpriced by about 23 cents.

 

[grsthegreat]

maybe my old $3500 f250 would only make it 100k miles then die....but i could buy 20 of them for the price of stupid truck nowadays........

 

[Jstpssng]

maybe my old $3500 f250 would only make it 100k miles then die....but i could buy 20 of them for the price of stupid truck nowadays........

How much money did you make then, and how much would it cost to get it too 100,000? 100K miles then was like 300K miles now.
You can buy a comparable truck today for a bit under $40K. It will ride better, haul and tow more, get better mileage, and the tires will last twice as long.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Bought a 1970 Chevy Nova brand new; I still remember writing the largest check I had ever written: $2330.00. It was a six cylinder, dark green, 2 door, three on the tree, radio but no AC.

 

[5030]

This is the car I road around in as a teen… it was owned by my uncles friend and Shelby GT350 number 1

And it was a daily driver for many years…

1966 SHELBY GT350 PROTOTYPE #001 - Vehicle | Barrett-Jackson Auction Company - World's Greatest Collector Car Auctions

www.barrett-jackson.com

350's were small blocks. 500 KR's were big block with dual quads. Of course the ideal one would be a Shelby Cobra Roadster, 2 seater with the bi block and side pipes.

In '67, my dad bought a 66 Vette, 427, 390 horse convertible and I instantly became the most sought after young lad in the neighborhood. All the gals wanted to go for a spin in it. Nice ride, wish I had it today. If I recollect, he paid around 4 grand for it back then.

 

[JethroB]

I am not sure if you could order it, but you could buy paregoric over the counter, my mother used it on my little brother to stop teething fussiness. If you don't know, it is opium and alcohol.

I used to buy blueing solutions in the 1980's that have been removed from the market. I haven't seen trichloraltrifloralethane sold as a degreaser in years.

My dad was a pharmacist. We sold bottles of paregoric to any adult that asked for it, but they had to sign a little ledger book. Great stuff for belly aches and the ‘trots’.

 

[5030]

Bought a 1970 Chevy Nova brand new; I still remember writing the largest check I had ever written: $2330.00. It was a six cylinder, dark green, 2 door, three on the tree, radio but no AC.

Ac was optional anyway. You had '55 air'. Flip the vent window around and all was good....

 

[JethroB]

They sold everything in their heyday. I have a JC Higgins .22 by Sears, as well as a Hercules 16 gauge shotgun by Montgomery Ward.
Both were my father's.

Sears had a separate catalog for Jeep accessories and parts as late as the late ‘70s. Bearings and seals to canvas tops to entire new bodies. WWII vintage and forward.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

And in the late sixties or early seventies I was earning 7-8% on that passbook account.

The real change was the job. Around here, every kid had a summer job picking crops in the field or irrigating. You could go picking unaccompanied at 12, and get a job irrigating as soon as you were big enough to move pipe. I had my first hourly job at 12, planting skips in strawberry rows, numbering rows with lath stakes, etc.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

My dad was a pharmacist. We sold bottles of paregoric to any adult that asked for it, but they had to sign a little ledger book. Great stuff for belly aches and the ‘trots’.

Paregoric is still legal in Canada, I think.

 

[JethroB]

I believe the part about being $50...but take that out of the equation and a lot of this story is a big myth...
There were lots of surplus jeeps sold after the war and individual vehicles rarely made it to US surplus auctions...most were sold to businesses or individuals that could buy stacked railroad cars or multiple railroad cars of the jeeps...it was those entities that then sold them individually at surplus auctions (not sanctioned my the US military and not for $50...)...

My dad bought a surplus Jeep from the army when he was discharged in December 1945. It was his daily driver until the mid 60’s. I have a few vague memories of it. Approximately 640,000 jeeps were made during WWII by Willys (2/3) and Ford (1/3). Most went overseas and never came back to the US.