help us find sources for item prices from 1998!

January 28, 2012 2:10 PM

My wife is asking her students to chart comparisons between prices of objects/items from the year they were born compared to prices today. Her kids are having a difficult time finding those prices from 1998 (the year most of them were born). I've struck out as well. Do you have any online sources for catalogues, price lists, etc from '98?
posted by HuronBob to Grab Bag (15 answers total)

Why not have them look at old newspapers? Maybe they might have to use resources other than the internet, but that's not a bad thing. Or if the school has access to ProQuest or another newspaper archive online.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:12 PM on January 28, 2012 [1 favorite]

Try the wayback machine at the internet archive?
posted by dfriedman at 2:16 PM on January 28, 2012

Also, this may be a little sophisticated for 14 year olds, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index may be of some help.
posted by dfriedman at 2:17 PM on January 28, 2012

Best answer: Radio Shack Catalogs.
posted by mykescipark at 2:25 PM on January 28, 2012 [3 favorites]

Might be worth seeing if there is a newspaper database that the school or local public library subscribes to, because often the best way to do this is to check out the Sunday newspapers especially around holidaytime. Something like Infotrac Newsstand is what we have locally here and you can do fulltext searches or pdf browsing of newspapers from 1980 to the present. I had a little luck Googling 1998 prices. You can also use Google to look at certain magazines from 1998 [Ebony, ABA Journal, National Parks magazine] I'm having some trouble figuring out how to do the most effective search within these magazines, but there are definitely some things-with-prices in the back pages where the ads are.
posted by jessamyn at 2:30 PM on January 28, 2012

Response by poster: mykescipark... the radio shack catalogue site is exactly the type of format we're hoping to find... thanks for that... more "department store" types of sites would be helpful as well.

Ideefixe- we're in a small town with a library that doesn't have that type of archive of newspapers. But all the kids do have laptops and online access.

dfriedman- good idea, but every site I try fails when it comes to hitting actual catalogue/price list kinds of pages...
posted by HuronBob at 2:30 PM on January 28, 2012

Response by poster: Jessamyn.. I'll have her check to see if the school subscribes to a newspaper database, thanks. The magazines are a good idea as well!
posted by HuronBob at 2:33 PM on January 28, 2012

It's likely you have access to some databases via MeL and people can log in with their local library card number OR their MI driver's license number. Maybe not good for kids on their own, but if your wife was with them it might be useful.
posted by jessamyn at 2:36 PM on January 28, 2012

Best answer: There's a Sears Wishbook website - HTTP://www.wishbookweb.com might help. I can't see what year it goes up to though because the site won't display right on my phone. Sounds like a fun project!
posted by Calzephyr at 2:38 PM on January 28, 2012

As for the newspapers, try going directly to the newspaper's own website: 1998 is right about when the chain of local papers I work for started putting it all online, and admittedly we were probably on the slower end of the scale.
posted by easily confused at 2:45 PM on January 28, 2012

Here's a Google Books search for 1998 magazines, with the idea that there might be prices in some magazine advertisements.
posted by XMLicious at 2:51 PM on January 28, 2012

and a Google News search for "classified" in 1998 newspapers
posted by XMLicious at 2:58 PM on January 28, 2012

I have had success with a student project starting on this website:
http://dmarie.com/timecap/
The kids put in their birthdate and get all kinds of info about what was going on that day.
posted by Kazimirovna at 4:08 PM on January 28, 2012

Get out of the house and go to the local downtown library and ask a Reference Librarian. You'll be directed to exactly what you're looking for - promise.
posted by aryma at 8:06 PM on January 28, 2012

Response by poster: thanks, folks... !
posted by HuronBob at 10:25 PM on January 31, 2012