On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 21:05:02 -0400, Andrew Toppan
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Aug 2003 20:33:51 -0400, "Charles Talleyrand"
wrote:

I'm interested in any time period from ancient Egypt to maybe Napoleon.
I'm just trying to get an order of magnitude informed guess.
Significant Google searching didn't help. Can anyone here help?

10 seconds of Googling for HMS VICTORY indicates that she "cost £63,176. For
comparison, this would be equivalent to the cost of building an aircraft
carrier today."

http://www.hms-victory.com/factsandfigures.htm

That's an obviously incorrect comparison. How many first rates
did the world have just before the Napoleonic wars? How many
aircraft carriers does it have now? What was the population then,
what is is now?

If the text were written in the 1940's, it might make sense but
today?
____

Peter Skelton