Re:A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the f...
by lb1lf on Monday July 31, 2023 @04:27PM
(#36948304)
I found this [0] story (In Norwegian only, use your translation service of choice), where it is observed that a freezer cost 'several months' wages' for a worker, and that adoption didn't take off until down payment options were introduced in the early sixties.
Interestingly, I found another couple of historical prices on consumer electronics:
A 21" black-and-white TV set in 1960: NOK 2,200 (two months' gross wages)
Tandberg 1/4" reel-to-reel tape deck (Also 1960): NOK 880 (Just shy of a month's wages)
'Cheap' 26" colour TV, 1993: Three weeks' wages
VHS recorder, also 1993: Another three weeks' wages.
Sony Walkman, also 1993: A week and a half of wages.
It is ridiculous how prices have come down in later decades.
[0] https://forskning.no/forbruk-hus-og-hjem-moderne-historie/dy...
As for the cost in 1950, I have no idea except what my grandmother told me - but the 7,000kr average annual pay I looked up at the bureau of statistics.
My paternal grandmother, though, upon hearing my maternal grandmother had a freezer already in 1950, was green with envy - they had not got one until the end of that decade.
I guess being an early adopter came at a price back then, too.