We live in an age of plenty, where the ridiculously common objects our ancestors once revered are now everyday items you can order with a click. The contrast between past prestige and modern ubiquity is startling, and the following ten things prove just how dramatically values have shifted.
Ridiculously Common Treasures of the Past
10 Pretzels
Most people would agree that pretzels are delicious, but few realize they once held the status of royalty. In Sweden around 1614, pretzels were so prestigious that royal couples incorporated them into their wedding ceremonies. Imagine two blue‑blooded families tying the knot with a twisted knot of dough as a centerpiece—quite the statement!
The snack’s origins trace back to monks who handed pretzels to their students, and in 17th‑century Europe the twisted treat symbolized holiness, much like how Catholics view wine as the blood of Christ.
Adding a dash of intrigue, pretzel makers inadvertently uncovered an Ottoman plot to sack Vienna a century earlier by overhearing tunnel‑digging noises near their bakery walls. So the surprise isn’t that pretzels were once revered; it’s that they fell out of favor entirely.
9 Black Pepper
Stop wherever you are and glance at the tiny shaker of black pepper on the table. In medieval Europe that modest container could have made you burst with outrage. Back then black pepper ranked among the world’s most valuable commodities.
Imagine a solid‑gold box filled with truffles; that’s the kind of extravagance medieval folk felt when encountering a pepper shaker. Brought to Europe from Kerala, India via the Silk Road, the spice was so coveted that Venetian and Genoese traders could set any price they desired. Even today the Dutch use a phrase meaning “pepper expensive” to describe absurdly high costs.
One of Christopher Columbus’s motivations for sailing west was to bypass the Venetian pepper monopoly. Ironically, he later filled his ship with what he thought was pepper only to discover the cargo was worthless, underscoring how priceless the spice truly was.
8 Aluminum
If you ever held a contest to name Earth’s dullest element, aluminum would win hands down. It’s abundant, unremarkable in appearance, and now shows up in everything from cars to soda cans. Yet in the mid‑19th century it was a luxury.
In 1884, an ounce of aluminum (28 grams) cost about $1—a sum that demanded ten hours of labor for the average worker. By contrast, today that same ounce of silver fetches roughly $17, which a minimum‑wage earner could earn in just over two hours.
Because of its rarity, aluminum became a status symbol. The U.S. government even commissioned the capstone of the Washington Monument to be made of aluminum, hoping to flaunt American wealth. At one point, officials debated covering many Capitol Hill monuments in aluminum—thankfully, that never happened, sparing Washington from a metallic makeover.
7 Books
In an era where a swipe can download dozens of ebooks, it’s mind‑blowing to consider how priceless books once were. The most vivid illustration comes from Ptolemy III’s third‑century BC negotiation with Athens over rare texts.
The Library of Alexandria, Ptolemy’s crowning achievement, aggressively collected books, even boarding ships to seize any literary cargo. When Ptolemy asked Athens to loan copies of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus, the Athenians demanded a hefty deposit of 15 talents of silver.
To put that in modern terms, Greece would be asking Egypt for millions—if not billions—of dollars for a handful of manuscripts. Ptolemy chose the books over the silver, draining his treasury, and then sent copies back to Athens, proving that possessing the originals was worth the financial sacrifice.
6 Nutmeg
Nutmeg today costs a few dollars for a modest package at a big‑box store, but in the medieval world it was perhaps the most valuable commodity on Earth—at one point even surpassing gold.
The spice trade ignited wars over cloves, but nutmeg took the frenzy to another level. In the 1600s the tiny Indonesian island of Run, only about three kilometers across, became the most coveted piece of real estate. The British and Dutch fought over it, and the Dutch ultimately swapped Manhattan for control of the island.
If you ever stumble upon a time machine, make sure your one souvenir is a jar of nutmeg; that’s the kind of item that could have reshaped empires.
5 Beds
Shakespeare’s will contains a legendary line: “I give unto my wife my second‑best bed.” The image of Mrs. Shakespeare receiving a “second‑best” mattress is pure comedy, but it underscores how valuable furniture was in the early 17th century.
Scholars have uncovered several wills from that era that bequeathed “second‑best” beds, suggesting even a modest bed was a luxurious status symbol. Imagine being left a “second‑best car” today—if that car were a Lamborghini Veneno, the disappointment would be minimal.
4 Broken Cups And Plates
When does a broken object become more valuable than its whole counterpart? In 15th‑century Japan, a shogun commissioned craftsmen to devise an aesthetically pleasing method for repairing broken pottery. Their solution, known as kintsugi, highlighted cracks with gold‑colored resin.
This philosophy aligned with wabi‑sabi, the cultural appreciation of imperfection. While modern kintsugi is practiced with more modest techniques, during the pre‑Tokugawa and Edo periods the art was so refined that experts could command high prices for repaired pieces.
3 Table Salt
Salt is essential for survival, and its importance was magnified during the American Civil War. Both the Union and the Confederacy relied on salt to preserve rations, tan leather, and dye clothing, making it a strategic resource.
Union forces deliberately targeted the South’s scarce inland salt works, recognizing that crippling salt production could undermine the Confederate war effort. Conversely, the Confederacy offered draft waivers to anyone willing to work in salt‑producing coastal facilities, turning salt work into a means of avoiding military service.
2 Tomatoes
Tomatoes now dominate global cuisine, appearing on pizza, pasta, and ketchup. Yet they arrived in Europe only in the 16th century, cultivated originally by the Maya. While Italians and Spaniards embraced them quickly, northern Europeans were wary because tomatoes belong to the nightshade family, which includes several deadly plants.
Consequently, tomatoes didn’t become commonplace in northern Europe and the American colonies until the mid‑18th century. In the early colonial period, they were treated like rare orchids—valued for their beauty alone. American poets even wrote verses about tomatoes, much as they would about roses.
1 Bird Poop
We’re not exaggerating when we say people once fought over bird droppings. In the 19th century, the Western world ran on guano, a fertilizer derived from seabird excrement. Though Peruvians had used it for centuries, European powers initially ignored it in favor of mining precious metals.
A Prussian naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt, sent a guano sample back home, prompting chemists to recognize its fertilizing power. The “Age of Guano” erupted, and President Millard Fillmore devoted his first State of the Union address to lowering guano prices—at the time, an ounce fetched nearly $5, outpacing even the peak price of aluminum.
The 1856 Guano Islands Act let American citizens claim guano‑rich islands worldwide, leading to the modern U.S. Minor Outlying Islands and influencing the creation of the Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Monument in 2014. Other nations also chased guano; Britain’s African imperial ventures included guano acquisition, and Peru, Bolivia, and Chile fought a war over it, causing roughly 15,000 deaths. Ultimately, synthetic fertilizers ended the guano boom, but the legacy of wars fought over bird droppings remains a striking example of how what is now ridiculously common once drove empires.