One of the challenges in writing a novel such as Sidereal Days that’s set in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s is getting the costs of things and monetary issues correct.  For example, how much do you have a high school band get paid for playing at a dance? How much do you charge them for a meal or for a hamburger and fries? Or for a tank of gas when they fill up their van?

There’s a scene in Book 1 when Orlando P. Jones is negotiating with the owner of Airway Motors to play in the dealer’s parking lot on a Saturday afternoon. Orlando mentions a figure of $50.00 and comments how differently the words “fifty dollars” sound when he says them compared to the way the shocked dealer says “fifty dollars!!!”

As it turns out, a fairly reliable guide to comparative prices is to divide modern prices by 10 or 11 to get an accurate sense of the price of things in the late 50’s/early 60’s. It works out pretty well in most cases. The exceptions to this general rule, and the most volatile commodities seem to be gas prices (relatively speaking much higher now by comparison with the average cost in 1962 of 29 cents per gallon), milk (much cheaper now comparatively), and college tuition (much higher now comparatively). Interestingly enough, music was more expensive comparatively in the Sparrow’s time.  45 singles at $.87 and albums at $3.67 would equate now to about  $9.00 and nearly $40.00 respectively.

So Orlando P. Jones was asking the car dealer to pay his high school band, with one single gig to their name, approximately $550. And when the Sparrows spend $3.50 at Bruce Johnson’s Phillips 66 gas station, they’ve topped off their tank with 12 gallons of gas. And the Sears Roebuck Silvertone 1300 guitar that Orlando and Rudy essentially cheat their classmate out of for $10 would be $110 in today’s prices–and they would really be cheating their classmate nowadays. That particular guitar was actually an excellent instrument and is a very desirable vintage guitar. In good condition it can sell for more than $500.