Truffles, Trifles & Trivia

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

A question is posed, whomever gets the first correct answer (and is acknowledged correct by the questioner) get to pose the next question:

Here be the articles, or guidelines if ye will:

1: I will ask a question at the end of this post.
2: Post an answer if ye will.
3: If I confirm that your answer is correct, you post the next question.
4: If an answer is wrong, then the asker should use his or her judgement - give people more time, give a hint, or ask an easier question.
5: Ask reasonable questions. The goal is to have fun, not to stump everyone.
6: If someone gives an answer that is true, then it counts as correct, even if you were thinking of a different answer. For example, if you asks who was the woman who sailed with Calico Jack, and you are thinking of Mary Read, and someone answers Anne Bonny, it counts.
7: Questions do not have to be about history or even pirates, but let's try and keep it within the time frame 1750-1900.
8: If ye don't know an answer, then researching it is okay, even googling.
9: If its your turn to ask, you have three days to post yer question. After that, whoever gets there first can ask the next question.

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

What objects became the most expensive 'luxury items and status symbols' in the world in the 1600s, worth 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman, that is ... until the economic bubble burst?

[Stephanie Helstein]

LOL! That sounds like beaver felt.

[Caspian Zeplin]

Tulips!

A very interesting read too. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

Tulips it is!

"Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" published in 1841 notes that in 1635, a sale of 40 bulbs for 100,000 florins was recorded. By way of comparison, a ton of butter cost around 100 florins, a skilled laborer might earn 150 florins a year, and "eight fat swine" cost 240 florins.

And if you think thats crazy, just google "damien hirst prices".

[Stephanie Helstein]

Not so odd since today you can buy a three-pack of 1 oz. bottles of saffron for a list price of $44.76. That represents 14,060 hand-picked stamens of the crocus flower. (I only know these things because my father's family once lived in Saffron Waldon, Essex, England, a community once known as the saffron capital of Britain.)

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

true. Saffron, vanilla beans and orchids are all excellent trade cargo, demanding extraordinary prices in Europe (even today).

I loved the story on the webpage Caspian referred to about the sailor who took and ate an onion from a merchant's table ... it turned out to be a tulip bulb "whose cost might have regaled a whole ship's crew for a twelvemonth". The sailor was jailed.

[Bosun Greybeard]

Looks like I am gonna be sneakin over to Malibu's house with a shovel and a bucket around midnight....

[Caspian Zeplin]

OK, I'm not very good at asking trivia questions, but here goes a fairly easy one:

Although news of the day's events wouldn't have reached him until weeks later, whose diary entry for 4th July 1776 read "Nothing of importance happened today"?

[Bosun Greybeard]

good old Farmer George, King George the III...

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

"Whatever happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping."
Frank Knox, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, on December 4, 1941.

[Bosun Greybeard]

"I predict the Happy Little Vegemite song will become the Australian national anthem!" Cyril Callister

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

One of the amazing things about Cyril, besides him seeing the sludge at bottom of the beer vats and deciding to eat it, was that he gained a Doctorate from Melbourne University for his work!