Historical exchange rates

Would it be an idea to add historical exchange rates somewhere to the site? And then as far back as possible? Through the silver and gold contents you can trace back a lot but after 1920 that becomes a bit hard sometimes. Anyone know how many French Francs you would need in 1930 to buy GBP or CHF? Or what Brazilian Milreis were worth at that time?

Sounds interesting but how can we find that information out and how would it be useful to us?

I had this bookmarked:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tables_of_historical_exchange_rates_to_the_United_States_dollar

I'm sure there are sites for individual currencies which track historical values.

I have used Yahoo's currency calculator couple of times. But not sure how far back in history they have the exchange rates for.

http://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Wechselkurse_(Goldstandard)

In German but anyway very informative

http://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Wechselkurse_(Goldstandard)

this link works better hopefully

This goes back to 1990.

http://www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates/

Several months ago I found a website that could go back to 1940s, but I can't find it now, but I know it exist. It would be very cool to have that tool on our numista website. And there is another site that tels you what would that worth today, after the inflation.

I like this one:

http://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp

It goes back a long time!

Cita1 guineas in 1300 had the same buying power as 906.99 current dollars.

Man, imagine carrying around a $1000 coin these days

This is an old thread, but the topic is rather interesting I think.

Getting a complete list of historical exchange rates is probably unrealistic at best and most likely impossible.
But dptashny's post above here gave me an idea. Historical data on inflation, which is pretty much the same as the chance in the consumer price index, is for many countries available at least back until the mid 19:th century.

To add yearly inflation or the average consumer price index in a list of years into a database should not be a huge task if people from various countries contribute data from their own country. At the bottom of this post is a link to an excel sheet with inflation data for Sweden, from year 1290 - 2006.

With this information, it's easy-peasy to translate the value of a coin. Example: 1 krona could in 1873  buy as much as 46 kronor today (€1 = 9 kr).
And if this is known AND you also know how much 1 UK penny from 1873 equals today, then you would also get the historical exchange rate between the two.

Why do this, someone asked? What is the point?
The point is, it helps understanding several things:
- Why we have certain denominations of coins in a specific period, and why we get new denominations and why certain denominations disappear.
- It helps understanding the actual value of the coins, for those who once used them. Even a penny could at some point be used for buying something.
- It helps understanding the choice of metal in coins.
Example: The Swedish 25 öre from 1874 (the then biggest coin) has a bullion value of circa 6 kronor, but the value of the coin would in todays value be 11:50 kronor, similar to todays 10-krona which now is the biggest coin. In 1943, when the bullion value was higher than the denomination by 20%, the silver content was lowered.
Or, in present values, in 1873 1 öre was worth 46 öre, a somewhat useful coin. When it was abolished in 1971, it was worth only 7 öre.

It might not interest everybody. It is not possible for all countries.
But for countries where it is possible, I'm sure there would be people like me who would find this interesting. It tells us something about our past, and about the coins. It would make a great site greater.
And with volunteers gathering the data not a huge or overly complicated task either.

What do you think?

The following excel sheet contains consumer price index data for Sweden for the years 1290 - 2006. The link point to the Swedish Reichsbank, the national bank of Sweden. The text is in English and Swedish.
http://www.riksbank.se/Upload/Dokument_riksbank/Monetar_hist/ConsumerPriceIndex1291_2006.xls
Explanation of data with graph in English:
http://www.riksbank.se/en/The-Riksbank/Research/Historical-Monetary-Statistics-/Prices/

I think it is very interesting too. Maybe a big sub-page at Numisdoc with country-list. Click on a country and read all info there is available on historical exchange rates.
Or better yet - if clicking on country in coin listing, then somewhere there a link to sub-article. Of course for the countries that we have that info for.                       

I find the idea of historical CPI and exchange rates both very interesting. I would also like price and wage information examples from some selected periods because it is also interesting to know what people were able to buy for their wages and how did the relative prices of goods change over time (CPI cannot tell that).

There are few things as difficult as measuring inflation. CPI methodologies differ and do not measure inflation for individual situations. There are people that buy a new car every year and others that only buy a second hand every 10 years. Heavy smokers will have a different feel of inflation than people who regularly buy electronics etc.

Furthermore, CPI's could be rigged to the downside for the benefit of keeping wages low and interest paid on government debt low. Latest example is Argentina, that uses an inflation of about 13% to compensate its inflation-linked bondholders where others measure inflation closer to 30%.

Nevertheless it would be very nice to add these figures to a Numisdoc. If you have access to a Bloomberg terminal (for ppl working in financial industry) you can easily download such data, for U.S. CPI even until more than 100 years back.

I also think that the topic is interesting. Of course I want to know what could someone from 110 years ago buy with the coin I'm holding in my hand now. And I prefer coins that have circulated and made themselves useful by transferring value. That gives them history and human touch. If the coin was untouched/useless then, then it's useless/untouched now too, and, for me, boring. Unfortunately there is not so much documentation about all the countries I have coins from, and the people who knew about that stuff are not with us anymore...