[Infinite Worlds] 1966

[David Johnston2]

OK, you have been given the rights to ship things into and out of a close parallel that is in its local year 1966. As always you can't import anything that would look blatantly impossible but you can import things that might seem a little odd. What commodities will you be selling?

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

OK, you have been given the rights to ship things into and out of a close parallel that is in its local year 1966. As always you can't import anything that would look blatantly impossible but you can import things that might seem a little odd. What commodities will you be selling?

One word: Plastics.

(Hopefully this doesn't count as linkdumping, as it is IMO highly relevant.)

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

OK, you have been given the rights to ship things into and out of a close parallel that is in its local year 1966. As always you can't import anything that would look blatantly impossible but you can import things that might seem a little odd. What commodities will you be selling?

I'm not sure there is a lot of stuff that already exists in 1966 that 2016 can produce all that much cheaper, so you probably aren't going to make a fortune shipping in stuff that is completely unsuspicious. And much of the stuff invented in the late 60s or early 70s, which thus wouldn't be too out of place, has often become so obsolete nobody makes it anymore in its original form. I mean who still sells dot matrix printers? I guess there are still some low res liquid crystal displays manufactured, that's a possibility. Alternate energy generation systems have gotten a lot of advances lately, not all of which are incredibly high tech, and there's starting to be a little interest in them by 1966. Disposable lighters were invented in the 70s, and cigarettes are still big business in 1966. Some cheap microwave ovens might not have any electronics in them that would stand out in 1966 and are much cheaper than the original Amana one in 1967. Chemistry is another likely place to look. Successful drugs introduced or discovered in the 70s include ciclosporin, Tagamet, rifampicin, clozapine (and several other second generation antipsychotics) and the rubella and chicken pox vaccines which would now be out of patent and hence relatively cheap. Prozac, one of the most profitable drugs up until the recent boom in "lifestyle" medications, is also invented in the early 70s, though not marketed for quite a long time. Clear polycarbonates are 1970. Kevlar is 1971. Sucralose is 1976. There are probably artificial flavors that are a lot cheaper now than in 1966 too.

Oh, and don't forget the reverse leg. What is 1966 paying for this stuff with?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by malloyd

I'm not sure there is a lot of stuff that already exists in 1966 that 2016 can produce all that much cheaper, so you probably aren't going to make a fortune shipping in stuff that is completely unsuspicious. And much of the stuff invented in the late 60s or early 70s, which thus wouldn't be too out of place, has often become so obsolete nobody makes it anymore in its original form. I mean who still sells dot matrix printers? I guess there are still some low res liquid crystal displays manufactured, that's a possibility. Alternate energy generation systems have gotten a lot of advances lately, not all of which are incredibly high tech, and there's starting to be a little interest in them by 1966. Disposable lighters were invented in the 70s, and cigarettes are still big business in 1966. Some cheap microwave ovens might not have any electronics in them that would stand out in 1966 and are much cheaper than the original Amana one in 1967. Chemistry is another likely place to look. Successful drugs introduced or discovered in the 70s include ciclosporin, Tagamet, rifampicin, clozapine (and several other second generation antipsychotics) and the rubella and chicken pox vaccines which would now be out of patent and hence relatively cheap. Prozac, one of the most profitable drugs up until the recent boom in "lifestyle" medications, is also invented in the early 70s, though not marketed for quite a long time. Clear polycarbonates are 1970. Kevlar is 1971. Sucralose is 1976. There are probably artificial flavors that are a lot cheaper now than in 1966 too.

Oh, and don't forget the reverse leg. What is 1966 paying for this stuff with?

Gold was relatively a lot cheaper in 1966 and it has excellent resale value in lower tech settings as well as our present. I'm not worried about what to buy, just what to sell.

[PTTG]

Import things from '66 USA to Homeline USA, then ship to Homeline China, then jump to '66 China.

[ericthered]

Remember that infinity doesn't have the same economy as us. Energy is much cheaper, as are raw materials ... we have gold scarcity, but infinity hardly does: infinity lacks mainly skilled labor.

I suggest selling aluminum. It requires huge amounts of electricity to process-- which is very very cheap on home-line, thanks to fusion. Or play middle man and serve up any of infinity's rich mineral resources, fresh from the easiest and best known deposits on earth.

[Curmudgeon]

Depends on how sneaky you (want to/can) be. If you can draw up the blueprints and things like molds in Homeline in relatively short order, your best bet might be to set up manufacturing in 1966 with their cheap labour and produce items from the best of the 1970s technology and then leapfrog ahead.

For example, I would want to primarily manufacture electronics, so I would set up to produce: the Apple IIgs (In this case, rather than standing for graphics and sound, it's marketed under the name Granny Smith) with enhanced 256k memory, 3.5" disc drives (up to 4), a good dot matrix printer, an optional NLQ printer, a 1024 x 512 scanner, a decent modem, and a mouse/tracball; a CRT colour television with a black matrix mask (Magnavox made the first one in the early 1970s and it made a huge difference by eliminating colour bleeding) with stereo speakers (stereo TV was actually a 1980s thing but it could have been done earlier); 8-track & 2-track cassette player recorders with Dolby noise reduction and Betamax VCRs.

This would all have been amazing technology in 1966 but none of it would have been implausible, as it only advances the tech by not quite a decade. Competing native companies would be blown away by the advanced engineering which would let me recruit the best and brightest upcoming native engineers who all want to work for my cutting edge technology company/companies. I can put them to work in my R&D section to produce my next generation products. By doing so, I deprive my competitors of their service, reinforce my backstory of having the very best, innovative engineers working for me. If I keep my R&D sections separated into relatively small separated groups and claim to have at least one more group than actually exists, I can keep making plausible leaps ahead of my competitors by bringing in either actors or more plausibly not-that-good real Homeline engineers to claim my 'fake' advances.

For my first leapfrog, I can add the MacIntosh interface to my computers, multi-processor cards, laser printers, inkjet printers, 12" Laserdisc Video Playback machines, CDs for music, microwave ovens, solar-powered electronic calculators, quadrophonic surround sound and iMax film technology.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

OK, you have been given the rights to ship things into and out of a close parallel that is in its local year 1966. As always you can't import anything that would look blatantly impossible but you can import things that might seem a little odd. What commodities will you be selling?

What you import is IP, mostly patents that are only a few years ahead of the local date. This could be quite a durable racket if you set yourself up as a "think tank" or some sort of high tech consulting firm. It'll be money fountain.

You then move on from the boring part to exporting and what you export is classic cars. Brand new '66 mustang convertibles in as big a quantity as you can cover up.. Psychedelic clothing could be worth shipping out and then there would be things like Jimi Hendrix bootlegs. This would be a money fountain too.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

But do you have to bring stuff to make money?

IMO it would be better to invest in the financial markets. Shares and bonds are not usually not very exiting, but are the things that really can enhance your wealth.
If it is a close parallel, you know where to put your money for the next years. Found brokerage firms at the major stock exchanges world wide and shell companies in tax oases to wash your profits.
And to spice things up, let some armed goons crash the companies christmas party.

[Phantasm]

I'm thinking what I'd import are raw materials mined on some other timeline - iron, aluminum, petroleum, coal, natural gas, copper, lead, etc.

Sell them at a slight profit, then buy as many Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, David Bowie (his first EP was put out in '66), Yardbirds, Grateful Dead, etc. bootlegs and whatnot as possible. :)