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Lt. Col. Reid's Materials Order

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Below is a copy of Lt. Col. Reid's salmon fly materials order filled by William Brown & Co. of Aberdeen, Scotland. This was given to me by our Friend Ron Alcott Ron tells me he received it from Guy Hurd, a friend from Scotland, who obtained it from Brown & Co.'s old files. I find it fascinating but I also find it difficult to read the cursive handwriting. The materials seem to rather expensive given the year being 1914. There are three columns for digits following the item. The columns represent Pounds, Shillings and pence in that order. For example the first line item, 2 reels of Silver Flatworm . 3 . is 2 spools Silver Flat tinsel costing 3 shillings. That was the old monetary system in use in Great Britain at the time. 12 pence = 1 shilling, 20 shillings = 1 Pound Sterling.



The total at the bottom of the first page is: 2 Pounds 17 shilling 9 pence.

Page two of the order below:



As you see above the subtotal is 6 Pounds, 1 shilling. Then 1 Pound, 11 Shillings was subtracted with additional items added April 5 bringing the grand total to 4 Pounds, 16 Shillings, 1 pence.

I found a website that has formulas to compute old money values from a specific year to modern currency values adjusted for inflation for the year 2002. That brings the value of Lt. Col. Reid's purchase to 2166 GBP or $3,908.32. That was a lot of money but he did get an Indian Crow (albeit a small one) but paid 3 times as much for a Jungle Cock cape. I have some really nice pairs of Jungle Cock nails if anyone would like to trade 3 pair of any subspecies Indian Crow for 1 pair of JC let me know. I'll even throw in some flat tinsel.

August 18 2005 An interesting observation by my local friend and fellow fly tyer Joe Sprys:

I looked at your copy of Lt. Col. Reid?s order from Ron Alcott. I wanted to know how much money that would have been in $US in 1914 instead of bringing it forward to today?s $. I found a currency converter that went back that far and it appears that the total was about $410.00.
Quite a sum for fly tying materials in 1914! He could have bought a Model T for that kind of money . . .
Joe