An eye for an eye, but a fortune for a tooth.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: Rundles Wrap-Up - Column

NOT TOO LONG AGO, MY 6-YEAR-OLD SON LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH AND I WAS suddenly thrust into the role of Tooth Fairy for the first time in something like 10 years. The wand was a little rusty, the dress tight, the wings somewhat less gossamery, and my bag of Magic Gifts, as it turns out, not nearly magical enough.

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It was as if I had left my Tooth Fairy investment, lo these many years, with Will Hoover, trusting that it had tripled in value only to discover him on his way to jail and my stash inadequate indeed.

Under my son's pillow I left a Sacagawea golden dollar coin because I thought it was special. He informed me, highly disappointed, that most of his classmates "got 20 bucks." I couldn't, of course, explain that there are many Tooth Fairies, but it occurred to me that my father, dealing with me 46 years ago, didn't have to deal with kindergarten economic discussions in quite the same way I have to today.

About a month earlier I was at a trade show in Detroit, visiting with some business associates, when the subject of Tooth Fairy money came up. I was informed--to my horror--that they were giving their children $20 and $30 a tooth, justifying the expense, I suppose, with the smug assurance that the money, or most of it, was going directly into said kid's bank account. Yeah, right. These kids are no fools; they know very well what 20 bucks is and just exactly what it will buy.

There's the rub. When I was 6, in 1958, I got a dime for a lost tooth, and I thought it was wonderful. When I went to the store, I asked "Sy," the candystore owner, how much I could buy. Today's 6-year-olds go online and make price comparisons through eBay auctions; it's a wonder they don't supplement their allowances with day trading.

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Just for grins, I called an economist at the University of Denver, Professor Tracy Mott, and asked him, based on the best econometrics he could muster, what a 6-year-old should get today from the Tooth Fairy if a 1958 6-year-old (me) got a dime.

"Ten cents in 1958 would be 65 cents today in equivalent purchasing power in overall price levels based on the CPI (consumer price index)," he informed me.

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