As Robert suggested, it has more to do with the dollar than anything else. In 1973 a Hershey bar cost 10 cents, so for $26.99 you could buy two hundred and sixty nine of them and have nine cents left over. Today a common price for Hershey bars is 79 cents, so it would take two hundred and thirteen dollars to buy the same number of them, meaning the equivalent value of $26.99 in 1970, is about $213.00 today, and today's $49.00 is equivalent to about $6.20 in 1973. It's pretty sad when you think about it.