The cow standard

[ffutures]

For the Tooth and Claw game dragons eat a LOT of meat, so I think that I have to assume that the average wage will pay for e.g. a cow every few days, and that meat in general will be cheap whereas some types of food (e.g. bread, cheese) either won't be on sale at all, or will be a niche market catering to foreign (human) tourists and foodys. What I want to do is work out things adventurers might want to buy - e.g. beer, guns, etc. - based on the thing I know - e.g. cows.

What I really need is some idea of the cost of a beef carcasse in the mid-Victorian era. I can then relate other prices I know to that. Presumably information like this is available, but I've not got very far - I got a victorian maths text that gave three different prices for a cow in three different sums, but I'm pretty sure that there is no real world connection, the numbers were just used to make the sums work.

Maybe something like a naval history, presumably navies bought meat in bulk? Anyone got any thoughts?

Later It occurs to me I'm looking at this wrong - it's only the big rich dragons that will be eating whole cows, your average dragon in the street probably just buys a goat or a few pounds of beef. So I'll work it out from butcher prices, which I already have.

Comments

[shana.livejournal.com]

Why cows?

Don't forget goats and sheep! And pigs!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

This is the best I can do so far:

"Herefords were still bred as prime cattle not fashionable breeds and in 1819 the average price at auction for 28 Prime Herefordshire Cattle of Benjamin Tomkins was £149. The Hereford was pre-eminent among the best breeds of the country."

From here:

http://www.smr.herefordshire.gov.uk/agriculture%20_industry/hereford_cattle.htm

[i_kender]

This is tangential, but have you read the Temeraire books? Naomi Novak... dragons in the Napoleonic Wars.

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

Well this old New York Times article says in 1900 British Beer was about 97 pfennigs a pound.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C0CE4D9133CE633A25753C1A9679D946396D6CF&oref=slogin

This article says a pound of beef is 10 cents a pound.

http://www.kyrene.k12.az.us/schools/brisas/sunda/decade/1900.htm#daily%20life

And finally a list of commodity prices for 1890:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-6535(192610)8%3A4%3C177%3AAMIOCP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S

However, this one requires that you access their site from a library.

Finally, there is this search string on Google Books that might help:

http://books.google.com/books?source=web&q=meat+prices+1890+england&btnG=Search+Books

My Google-fu is strong...