I'm trying to make that math add up...Hinman indicates Ligowsky's...sold to clubs for 3/4 cent each.
Another one of the same era is listed as a penny a piece.
Blue rocks are shown in an illustration for $7/1000. Shells of the era seem to have been at most 2 cents each.
First you need to understand that Ligowsky targets in England in 1882 were not equal to Ligowsky targets in America in 1887. Secondly, Hinman's book is dated and gives but a sliver of info available to him more than thirty-six years ago when he did his research. The development of clay targets and factory loads during the 1880s was dramatic, going from zero to rather large numbers; loaded paper shotshells in 1888 were but 14% of those sold in 1900. Chamberlain Conical Base loaded black powder shells in 1892 were $26.00 per 1,000 ($.65 per box of 25--add $.05 for smokeless powder, and $.03 for chilled shot--$.73 per box of 25). Prices dropped to $.50 per box at the turn of the last century.
But going back to the 1870s, imported Eley empties in three grades--tan, blue, green--were $12.50 to $27.50, depending on quality--tan were single use, green were said to be reloadable six times. At $26.00 per thousand for empties in 1870, the loaded black powder shells of 1892 seem pretty cheap (both $.65 per 25), but still out of reach of the working man who earned an average $.25 per hour. As to Ligosky's clays at $4.2 cents each in England in 1882, similiar clay targets cost $4.25 per thousand in America in 1914 (10%)--then a Serb shot an Archduke...
I have a 1950s Super-X box in my collection marked $1.38--gas was $.26 per galion at the time. I can buy cheap 12-gauge loads on sale at Gander Mountain for $4.19 today, while gas hovers at $3.00 per gallon. Try to make this math add up. But keep in mind, 1870 was not 1882 was not 1887 was not 1892 nor 1900--prices were extremely time sensitive. And remember that a 10-inch TV in 1950 cost $500, and a large desk-top electronic calculator in 1968 started at $1,600--then a few years later the same calculating power fit in your pocket and banks gave them away for opening a new account.
Finely, one needs to be mindful on the limitations of researching back in the late 1960s when Hinman wrote his book (published in 1971). It is doubtful that he had access to a useful photocopy machine. Peter Johnson's Parker book was written in longhand and he never spoke to a source in the late 1950s, everything was by letter-post back and forth. When Larry Baer wrote his Parker book in the early 1970s he lamented that he couldn't access the Parker records at Remington, but, really, what would he have done with 30,000 pages of data?
Much info has since come to light, but more important is the ability to copy and store the data and sort thru it in the comfort of one's own home or office. Yet one big problem of old-time gun researching remains, comparing the apples of 1882 to the oranges of 1887. Saying that "Shells of the era seem to have been at most 2 cents each" begs the issues of (1) What "era"? and (2) What does "seem" mean in the context of provenance? No wonder the math doesn't add up.
Parting shot: Generally speaking, prices were not mentioned in nineteenth century pulp weekly ads; in order to get a sense of price levels, old catalogs are helpful, but some of the best sources are the letters to the editors complaining of high prices. Even when clay targets bottomed out at about a half-cent each pre-WWI there were complaints of price gouging...which led to the Interstate Assn. reorganizing in 1918/19 to establish the ATA in 1920. The manufactures and dealers had spiked the job by making
Trapshooting: The Patriotic Sport after the Great War. All that remained was for the proletatiat to earn enough to participate. EDM
