>I am wondering if anyone has a clue about the development of prices of
iron nails? I mean those done by blacksmiths<
Not quite the period you are looking for but I came across these prices.
In a book of miscellaneous facts called "Swansea before Industry" Gerald
Gabb quotes a court action for building the Llangefalach copper works. In
January
1718 there are records of two orders for "A million nails" were which
together cost 11s 2d.
I know Gerald very well and I have no doubt that this is a fact and that he
could show me the record in question.
What I have some doubt about is the number supplied. The possibility of
physically counting 1,000,000 nails seems remote. In 1717 while I am
sure everyone could count to some extent (otherwise they would be cheated
when buying or selling anything) I wonder whether any storekeeper or workman
would know what a million was, or be able to do the arithmatic to work out
how many smaller batches made a million.. I fear that all we can reliably
say is that two batches containing a huge number (probably quite a few
thousands) of nails were bought, probably by weight. The other
possibility is, of course, exageration in a court case.
More reliably from the same source "a quarter of a hundred deale boards"
were nailed onto a building in 1647 with 1s 6d worth of nails. We don't know
how long or wide the boards were but we can have a reasonable guess how many
nails
(2-3 inch perhaps) there were. Your guess is as good as mine but it will
surely be hundreds not
thousands.
1645 - 1 1/2 cwt of nails 1s 1d
1659 - 1500 pins (probably lath nails) @ 4d per thousand - 1s 10p.
Something wrong here - perhaps 5500 pins. I must ask Gerald if this is a
typo.
1718 - 3lbs sprigs 12 pence (this is the copper works again).May be
non-ferrous. The sprigs I
know are triangular nails for holding glass in windows and are clipped from
sheet. .The 1730 drawing shows windows that look to be glazed.
1657 - 3 pounds of spikes 1 shilling. The disparity in the price of these
large nails suggests to me that they were made by a local smith while the
pricing of the
smaller nails suggests that they were bought in from a merchant.
The slitting mill for producing nail rod was in use in England by then and
the small iron nails were probably produced in nailors shops in the
Midlands.
Peter Hutchison
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|