Price and Inflation Methodology

Inflation adjustment

Real price = nominal price × (reference CPI ÷ observation-year CPI).

Reference CPI: 334.98; reference month: 2026-08.

The reference is a published 2026 monthly CPI observation. It is not a forecast or an annual average for the unfinished year.

For 1913–2025, the calculation uses the BLS published annual CPI-U averages, series CUUR0000SA0. The 2025 annual value reflects BLS data availability, including the missing October observation.

Before 1913

For 1900–1912, the index is estimated from the ratio of nominal to constant-1998 gold unit values in the public-domain USGS Data Series 140 workbook, multiplied by the BLS 1998 annual CPI of 163. These estimates inherit rounding from the USGS table and are not official BLS observations.

Price definitions and records

Annual benchmark prices, import unit values and uranium purchase averages measure different things. Source transitions are stated on the commodity pages. Daily quotations, intraday peaks and futures rollover series are not substituted for these annual observations. Missing observations remain absent.

Metric tons contain 1,000 kilograms; a pound is 0.45359237 kilograms; a troy ounce is 31.1034768 grams. Wheat and soybean conversions use a 60-pound bushel; corn uses a 56-pound bushel. Sawnwood is displayed in the source unit of dollars per cubic meter.

Record cards show the highest and lowest annual observations within each displayed dataset. Ratios use years available in both constituent series; their means weight each matched year equally.