Guess the Price of Houses, Appliances & Gadgets
How much was a new house in the 1960s, a Sony Walkman or the first iPhone? This quiz puts big purchase prices to the test. You guess the launch price of houses, appliances, gadgets and everyday costs.
Every answer shows the original price and the price in today’s money, adjusted for inflation. It is a quick way to see what big purchases really cost our parents and grandparents.
Big purchases launch prices, then and now
All 41 Big purchases questions
Every product below is a real question in the game. Can you guess where it comes from and what it cost when it first went on sale?
- KitchenAid Stand Mixer (1919)
- Toastmaster Pop-Up Toaster (1926)
- GE Monitor Top Refrigerator (1927)
- Zippo Lighter (1933)
- Waring Blendor (1937)
- Lincoln Continental Coupe (1939)
- ERCO Ercoupe 415-C (1946)
- Polaroid Land Camera Model 95 (1948)
- Levittown Ranch House (1949)
- RCA CT-100 Colour TV (1954)
- Continental Mark II (1955)
- Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (1957)
- Xerox 914 copier (1959)
- Kodak Instamatic 100 (1963)
- Learjet 23 (1964)
- DEC PDP-8 minicomputer (1965)
- Polaroid Swinger (1965)
- Amana Radarange Microwave (1967)
- Lincoln Continental Mark III (1968)
- Hamilton Pulsar (18-carat gold) (1972)
- Polaroid SX-70 (1972)
- Sony Betamax (LV-1901) (1975)
- Cray-1 supercomputer (1976)
- Robinson R22 helicopter (1979)
- Sony Walkman (1980)
- Sony CDP-101 CD Player (1983)
- Motorola DynaTAC 8000X (1984)
- Cadillac Allanté (1987)
- Cadillac Escalade (1999) (1998)
- TiVo (1999)
- Dyson DC07 Vacuum (2002)
- iRobot Roomba (2002)
- Ford GT (2005) (2004)
- Amazon Kindle (2007)
- Apple iPhone (2007)
- Nest Learning Thermostat (2011)
- Amazon Echo (2014)
- Ring Video Doorbell (2014)
- Tesla Powerwall (2015)
- Apple AirPods (2016)
- Apple HomePod (2018)
More price-guessing categories
Famous big purchase prices, then and now
Here are some of the big purchase prices you can read about in full. Each one links to the story behind the price.
- Motorola DynaTAC 8000X (1984): $3,995
- Sony Walkman (1980): about $200
- Original iPhone (2007): $499
- Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (1957): $13,074
Big purchase prices show how fast new technology gets cheaper. The first mobile phone cost $3,995 in 1984. Today, a far more powerful phone costs a fraction of that.
Old prices can look tiny, but inflation changes the picture. We convert every launch price with the US Consumer Price Index from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can browse every story on our famous launch prices page.
How to play
Most rounds start with a world map. Drop a pin where you think the product was invented. Then guess its original launch price. We reveal the real price, its value in today’s money and how far off your pin was. The closer you are, the more points you score.