Jubilee treasure chest

By LIZ PHILLIPS FOR MAILONLINE
Updated: 19:00 EST, 28 May 2002

THE Golden Jubilee Bank Holiday takes place next week. To get you in the mood, Money Mail examines the everyday bills Britons faced 50 years ago, and look at which gems from the Fifties are being snapped up by collectors.

The Basics: When the Queen came to the throne in 1952, the average weekly wage for men was less than £9 a week, while women earned just £5.

If these figures had increased in line with the cost of living, women would be earning £85 a week now and men £153. In fact, wages have increased much faster than prices, so the average man now earns about £490 a week, while women can expect £366.

Home ownership was becoming more popular. But if you wanted a mortgage, you'd have to wait for several weeks for the money, which was severely restricted. An average semi-detached home cost £2,028, equivalent to around £34,496 in today's money.

Rampant house-price inflation from the Seventies onwards has pushed the price of a typical semi today to more than £109,000.

Mortgage rates were controlled by a cartel of banks and building societies. The Bank of England base rate 50 years ago stood at 4% - the same as now - but the mortgage rate was just 4.5%. Halifax's rate now is 5.75%.

The savings rate was also set by the cartel. A savings account paid 2.5% - much more than the 1% or less paid on most High Street accounts today.

If £10 had been put into a standard savings account then, it would now be worth £116. But you'd need £170 to have kept pace with the cost of living.

The craze for share-based investments simply did not exist in the way it does now. But it would have been worthwhile. A £10 investment in M&G's Blue Chip unit trust back then would now be worth £3,534.

Gold was seen as a great haven in times of financial trouble. An ounce of gold then cost $38 or £13 6s 1d. Today, it costs £220. To keep pace with inflation it would need to be worth £241.61.

Spending: But what was this money being spent on? If you made the right choices, you may have something valuable lurking in your loft. Freed from the restraints of World War II, Fifties designers chose fun motifs, exuberant patterns and cheerful colours.

The best examples of the era from adventurous designers are have become very collectable.

Madeleine Marsh, who has written a Miller's guide to collecting objects from the Fifties, says: 'In the past five years or so, prices have doubled for designs typifying the decade and are still rising. But there are still many Fifties objects that can be picked up cheaply from junk shops, car boot sales and market stalls.'

Out went boring white goods and in came colourful labour- saving devices. The space-age globe-shaped Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner now sells for £60 to £80.

Fifties-inspired retro styles are back in fashion for toasters, food mixers and kettles. The vintage models cost about the same - £50 for a mixer, rising to £400 for a fridge - but only if they've been carefully overhauled.

Kitchenware can still be picked up cheaply - a mixer bowl decorated with an abstract design goes for £20 to £30.

A young Terence Conran created innovative ceramic designs for pioneering firm Midwinter. His plates sell for £60 to £80 now. Even a black and white Homemaker plate, once sold in Woolworth's for 6d, sells for £10 to £12 today.

Italian glassware from Murano is worth collecting, especially if it is by designers such as Anzolo Fuga. Furnishing fabrics are particularly popular. Look out for abstract patterns by the most important British designer, Lucienne Day, who designed for Heals. A pair of curtains by her can fetch £800 to £1,000 at auction.

The most desirable names in furniture are Danish designer Arne Jacobson and Americans Charles and Ray Eames. Expect to pay £2,000 for Jacobson's classic Egg chair, moulded from glass fibre and upholstered in leather. An Eames leather and rosewood TV chair can also cost £2,000.

Flying ducks (£55 to £65 a set), nodding dogs (£7 to £15 each) and Tretchikoff's painting of a greenfaced Chinese girl (£30 to £35) are in demand.

Anything designed along the lines of pin-ups and poodles fits the bill. A battery- operated cocktail shaker in the shape of a golden bikini-clad girl is worth £20 to £25, while a sober man's tie with a print of a busty Jayne Mansfield hidden on the inside lining sells for £150 to £200 now. Or you can cuddle up to her in the shape of a hot water bottle (£70 to £90).

Leisure: Cinemagoers wanting to see Vivien Leigh in her Oscar-winning role as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire had to pay between 1s (85p) and 1s 6d (£1.28) for a ticket.

A trip to the terraces at Highbury to watch Arsenal would have cost 3s (£2.55), compared with £24.50 today.

Televisions were highly prized in the Fifties. In preparation for the Queen's Coronation - the first to be televised - many people splashed out a month's wages on a brown bakelite Bush TV. A 22-inch set cost £35 10s (equivalent to £603.86). Today, it is worth around £200.

Transistor radios became small and portable. A Bush TR2 would be worth £10 to £12 today. Record players also came in portable sizes and could be housed in furry carry-cases. An imitation leopard- skin vinyl vanity case holding a Braun record player is worth upwards of £250 today.

The post-war baby boom led to mass-produced toys. They need to be in good condition and in their original box, if there was one, to be valuable now.

The Bayko building set could fetch £50, while Matchbox cars, which fitted in your pocket, are worth £15 to £20 with the box but only £10 to £15 without it.

A diecast Muffin The Mule was one of the first toys to be based on a television character and sells for about £30 today.

For older children, dubbed teenagers for the first time, rock 'n' roll ruled and the king was Elvis Presley. A shirt with his name in it from the 1957 film Jailhouse Rock is worth close to £4,000.

Records and their sleeves have to be in perfect condition to be desirable, but quirky features can also push the price up.

For instance, Buddy Holly's EP Listen To Me was first released with a picture of him without his glasses. Holly insisted it was withdrawn and reissued with him in his heavy-rimmed specs. The one without his glasses is worth £300, but only £20 with them on.

Fashion: Dresses had nipped-in waists and wide skirts, women's suits consisted of short-waisted jackets and pencil skirts and were often trimmed with fur. The new look was completed by hats, white gloves, stilettos and handbags.

Vintage clothes, such as an English print cotton dress decorated with pictures of Paris, can be picked up for £20 to £30, but haute couture formal wear by Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga or Hartnell sells for hundreds of pounds.

James Dean and Elvis Presley made denim jeans and jackets the symbol of rebellious youth. Vintage denim is highly prized - a pair of Fifties Levis sell for £500 to £750 if they are in good condition.

Memorabilia: Stamp and coin specialists Spink estimate that a clean 1953 First Day Cover of the Queen's Coronation with a set of four British stamps is worth £30 to £40 with an ordinary postmark, but if it was post-marked at Buckingham Palace, it would be worth £350 to £400. It cost 5s (25p) then.

Coins from that time are too common to be valuable. However, the gold £5, £2, sovereign and half sovereign of 1953 are very rare. A collector with a set of all four could expect to sell them for a six-figure sum.

•Miller's Collecting The 1950s, by Madeleine Marsh, costs £15.99.