fact or fiction?

Auld Phart

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It’s a great story, but fact checkers at Snopes have discerned that not only were people using the word “shot” in reference to booze before the Old West period, but also that the cost of a cartridge and a shot of whiskey differed quite dramatically. According to the 1891 edition of “General Catalog” — a trade publication from Chicago hardware company Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett, & Co. — the cost of .45 cartridges was $25 per thousand, meaning each cartridge was priced at around 2 and a half cents. On the other hand, “Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City” by Kelly J. Dixon, discloses that the cost of any drink containing liquor in the Old West was approximately 25 cents — 10 times that of a bullet cartridge.



 
Apparently fiction.

"The 1891 edition of Chicago hardware dealer Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co.'s General Catalog lists Smith & Wesson .45 cartridges at a price of $25 per thousand, or 2-1/2 cents per cartridge. For the price of a shot of whiskey, we consulted Kelly J. Dixon's 2005 book Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City, which notes that the average cost of a measure of any drink was around two bits, or 25 cents (although the cost later dropped as competition increased when more Americans moved west). Using those figures as our base prices, one shot of whiskey would have cost the equivalent of 10 cartridges. "
 
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