How much would 200,000 francs in Dostoevsky's Gambler be worth in USD today?

by [deleted]

In the book, the protagonist wins 200,000 francs playing roulette. This is circa 1860s Germany. Thanks in advance.

Ertata

Due to the currency being tied to the precious metals it's relatively easy to convert francs into contemporary dollars. That would be $38,547 if converted through the gold value or $37,373 if converted through the silver value. So let's say 38,000.

Where it gets interesting is trying to calculate modern values. By purchasing power 38,000 of 1860 dollars are roughly equivalent to 1,222,000 of 2020 dollars, while 38,000 of 1870 dollars are roughly equivalent to 777,000 2020 dollars. But that comes with multiple caveats - this tells us what you can buy for that kind of money, but not how long it would take to earn that kind of money in other ways, what standard of living that sum would provide if invested or many other ways in which you can compare one sum of money to another. Finally even purchasing power is about purchases with dollars in the US, if you try to combine that with Germany amount of ways you can answer the question rises immensely - even today the answer to question "how much X can $100 buy" depends on where you buy X, in the 19th century the prices of commodities varied even more.