A serious enqiury to my American friends...

[dizzojay]

In the name of research I have a question that I can't seem to find an answer for via the wonders of Google, and I am hoping that some of you lovely American peeps that drop in on me from time to time may be able to help me!


My question is this:


What was the going rate for the tooth fairy in the US in the mid eighties? 


Thank you :)

Comments

hey

[leighannwallace.livejournal.com]

Rats. Was going to tell you, then I saw "eighties" and :(.

Now, if you were asking about the sixties! :)

Re: hey

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Heehee, you and me both. I was a customer of the tooth fairy in the early seventies so could probably have made a realistic stab at an answer except for the fact that I could only quote for the UK tooth fairy. She was working for around five pence a tooth when I was an anklebiter!

Re: hey

[spnlicous.livejournal.com]

The going rate now is now £1, at least in this house. Unfortunately for this tooth fairy, Grandma was around when the first tooth came out, and the Grandma tooth fairy pays £1. Otherwise it was going to be 50p.
I vaguely remember getting 10p for the first tooth, but nothing after that.

Re: hey

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Wow, that poor tooth fairy; inflation must be hell in tooth fairy land :D

[ficwriter1966.livejournal.com]

Well, back in the Sixties around my house, it was 25 cents. I'd imagine in the mid-Eighties it might be a dollar, depending on how much spare cash the family had. For the Winchesters? Maybe a shiny fifty-cent piece? (I was always quite enthralled with half-dollars as a kid, because you didn't see them very often.)

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

That sounds reasonable, thank you!
It's for a fanfic, in case you think I'd gone totally la la, and I was originally floating the idea of a dime, but I guess that would be a bit stingy wouldn't it?
:D

[ficwriter1966.livejournal.com]

I suspected that's what it was for. :)

I think I'd go with a fifty-cent piece. They're fun but not terribly collectible. "Silver" dollars (which haven't been pure silver since the 60's, I don't think; now they're an amalgam with copper and...nickel?) I don't recall as having much "cool" factor for me or my brother.

[auntmo9.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with ficwriter1966. My mom says she and her sisters were lucky to get a quarter when they were kids.
My baby sister is just a few years older than Dean would be and the Tooth Fairy gave her a dollar when she came to visit. I am seven years older than she is and I was in the 50 cent to $1 range. Nowadays, my sister's twin boys get $5!

And yeah, for the Winchesters, a fifty-cent piece, or depending on how John's luck is running, maybe something extra?

[ficwriter1966.livejournal.com]

FIVE BUCKS?? I'm gonna go live at your sister's house!

I keep remembering, little kids think coins are way neater than paper money. For a dollar...you could get one paper bill (piece of paper, woo hoo) or TEN shiny dimes!

When my cousin's son was little, my grandmother (his great-grandma) would give him a dollar every Sunday for his bank account. One Sunday she said to him, "Can Nanny have a kiss?"...and he stuck out his pudgy little hand and said, "Dollar." We took to calling him "Alex P. Keaton."

[auntmo9.livejournal.com]

LOL!

I am not sure my nephews understand the $5 though, or at least they appreciate small things, too because they love going to yard sales with my mom. She took them yesterday and and they each got a toy for 25 cents. They were so excited. they told my mom "We are so glad mom (their mom) had to work today, other wise we wouldn't have gone to the yard sale with you and gotten these nice toys"

[lolaann1.livejournal.com]

Whatever change Dad had in his pockets was pretty much what I got. But my neice (who lives with my parents) has been known to get $5. Yeah, I whine about that loudly.

But, I agree with others, for the Winchesters 50 cents or a crumpled dollar bill would probably be par for the course - unless John had really hit it big at the tables. Or maybe even some Canadian coins. As a kid I was always fascinated when we'd get Canadian coins as change. Technically they aren't worth anything here (obviously) but they look so similar they often get mixed in.

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Wow, and I thought this was such a simple question!!!!!
Thank you for all your suggestions, I'm definitely doing to run with fifty cents I think.

Five dollars from the tooth fairy O.o Holy heck!

Just for the record, I've just had a very timely phone call from my Mum, and I asked her about my tooth fairy, and apparently I used to get ten pence from Mum and Dad tooth fairy, and another ten pence from grandparents tooth fairy. Why is life never simple?

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

My daughter is a year older than Sam. I asked her what the tooth fairy used to leave her and she said:

"It depended on the tooth. For a normal tooth, I think it was .50. If
it was a traumatic tooth, either $1 or $2. Though when I had my tooth
broken by that awful dentist, the tooth fairy left me a wire and
netting butterfly, so, she's flexible!"

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

What an imaginative fairy :)

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

Sarah sent me an addendum to her initial response--Adrienne is her sister, 7 years younger:

"Adrienne got barbie dolls or $1- $2 for hers, so obviously the tooth fairy went with inflation."

I never realized how big of a deal the tooth fairy was!

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

Wow!

I fell off a horse and knocked my two front teeth out when I was 15 in 1983, and the flippin' tooth fairy never gave me anything then.

Humph!

[heavenli24.livejournal.com]

My best friend in primary school moved to Dallas for a year when we were five years old (around 1988) - I remember her telling me when she came back that she got $1 from the American tooth fairy (while we only got 20p per tooth in English tooth fairy :P).

[dizzojay.livejournal.com]

You'd think the tooth fairies would hve a scale of charges worlde, wouldn't you!