Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 April 19

= April 19 =

FRF and USD exchange rate, 1922
According to Michelin Guide:"Michelin decided to charge a price for the guide, which was about 750 francs or US$2.15 in 1922."(The source is dead, and the archive page didn't work for some reason.) What was the exchange rate during this period? I highly doubt the almost-350-per-$1 rate claimed here, since the highest denomination of current French postage stamps was 2F — that's ½¢ US if the exchange rate is right, which would make the lower denominations of stamps (all the way down to 1c) utterly impractical. Would it perhaps be 7,50F = $2.15, or about 3,50F = $1? Nyttend (talk) 04:53, 19 April 2024 (UTC)


 * The Federal Reserve Bulletin from 1914 to the modern day can be found online at FRASER, and may be of interest (pun only semi-intended.) Here's the section for the 1920s. While all the economic jargon escapes me, I imagine there might be something related to exchange rates with the franc in there. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:11, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Of especial relevance methinks, there are sections on foreign exchange rates in each of the 1922 bulletins I've looked through. The December 1922 bulletin in particular has a graph indicating that the exchange rate with the franc hovered between 30-50% of par, which is listed above as 19.3. I am unsure as to what units these are. If it's F/$, then at 30-50% that's between 5-10 F/$, which is off from 3.5. If the units are $/F then that's between 0.1-0.2 F/$ which still is off from any number resembling 3.5. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:34, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * From our article French franc: "After two centuries of inflation, it was redenominated in 1960, with each new franc (NF) being worth 100 old francs." So a 2 NF postage stamp would have been a 200 F stamp before redenomination. The article has a graph of the value of the old French franc in 2007 Euros for the period from 1907 to 1960, equating the value of the 1922 franc with 1 euro. Charging the equivalent of 750 euro for the guide would have been excessive also in 1922. A chart here equates one franc in 1922 with 8 to 9 US dollar cents, which makes US$2.15 in 1922 more like 25 francs. --Lambiam 06:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Here we have a reliable contemporary source giving the price as 7 francs. --Lambiam 09:49, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Bookmark this website which gives you everything . 2A02:C7B:100:AA00:D9ED:5C02:4C7B:F3D7 (talk) 10:55, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I just checked the Federal Reserve Bulletin for January 1922.  On page 114 the "Par of exchange" is given as "19.30" (confirming Lambiam) and the "Average for December" is 7.8416.   On the next page is the graph Lambiam describes, which shows that in December the French franc traded at 40% of par. 2A02:C7B:100:AA00:D9ED:5C02:4C7B:F3D7 (talk) 11:12, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

The French Franc lost nearly 35% of its value against the US dollar during 1922 (from highest monthly average rate to lowest), from 10.8 per US$1 in April to 14.6 in November. That should be reason enough to adjust a dollar price. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 19:33, 20 April 2024 (UTC)