The U S A was still on a gold standard in 1961, so let's use the price of gold as a comparison. In 1961, gold was priced at $35.25 per troy ounce. Gold closed at $1672.40 per troy ounce on Jan 31, 2013. Using that as a standard 32 bucks was worth 47.44 times more than it is now, or about $1518 ...