The Hanging Tree

The last western in which Gary Cooper starred.

This film seems to deflate the value of money disproportionate to its actual worth in the 1800s. The $1/egg that Rune pays the Flaunces is equivalent to over $23 each in 2024. A cattle baron at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco wouldn't have paid those prices. Frail and Flaunce deflate the value of Elizabeth's brooch as maybe worth $20, but in 1870 that was the equivalent of $470 (in 2024).

However, it is well known that prices in remote U.S. mining camps of the 19th and early-20th centuries were astronomical compared to the "civilized" cities. A cattle baron wouldn't pay that price in San Francisco, but he might in a "town" of a 100 people who had access to only a dozen eggs a week. A Smithsonian magazine article from 2015 states that "Back in 1849, a dozen eggs would cost the equivalent of $90."