Lot 1985
1914-S $20 St. Gaudens. PCGS graded MS-63. One of these double eagles for four days' pay? Henry Ford was the most prominent of the many men who formed early automobile manufacturing plants in America. He transformed the society into which he was born by a process of superior engineering and paternalistic management. Via assembly-line fabrication, Ford put what had up until then been a rich man's toy into the hands of the average working man. In 1908-09, the Ford Model T cost $825. By 1926, it cost only $290.
What Henry Ford announced in 1914 surprised the world. It flabberghasted his workers. He said that he was raising the minimum pay at his plant to $5 a day and inaugurating the 8-hour day. It was headline news. He could have hired workers for only $2 a day. He claimed that he was motivated to pay $5 by social justice. It was also a way to make the cars Ford workers produced affordable to them. Aided by Henry Ford's business acumen, by 1920, 26 percent of households owned automobiles; by 1930, 60 percent did. One double eagle for every four days' labor. And in those days, this was the take-home amount, there was no tax withholding, no sales tax in the stores, in fact, no income taxes to pay for the average wage earner, with little in the way of meddlesome individuals living off the proceeds of others. Imagine that (PCGS # 9166) .
Estimated Value $1,500 - 1,550.
The Arden Collection.
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| Realized $1,581 |
