A Rope For Nothing
 

A pirate wants to buy a rope at a store in ancient Boston. All he has is a 5$-forgery. Now in the store the following conversation takes place:

Pirate: “What’s about that reel? How many yards are there on it and what should it cost?”
Shopkeeper: “Well, 100 feet for only 7 bucks”

Pirate: “Seven bucks? Is that reel made of gold?”
Shopkeeper: “No – the rope is a rope and the reel is made of wood. And wood is expensive”

Pirate: “That’s too long for my business, I need just about 20 feet of that rope!”
Shopkeeper: “No problem: you could get 20 feet for – let’s say - 2 cents per foot”

The pirate agrees and the shop-keeper starts counting with his yard-measure. But the pirate soon notices that the yard-measure ends at 33 inch. The shop-keeper cuts the rope and hands it over to the pirate.

Pirate: “Hmm, I’m not sure, the 20 feet would fit. Gimme the 80 feet”

Then the pirate pays with his false 5$ and disappears in the streets of Boston.

Suppose the rope is really worth 2 cents per foot, and the pirate’s 5$ is a surgery, what’s the shopkeeper’s total financial loss?

1 yard = 3 feet, 1 foot = 12 inch

Did the shopkeeper also charge 2 cents per foot for the "80 foot" length, or did the pirate just not get any change for his $5 forgery?

And was the 100-foot rope measured with the shopkeepers 33-inch yard-measure?

And when the shop-keeper measured only one foot or two feet with his 33-inch yard-measure, did he stop at the 11-inch and 22-inch marks, or the 12-inch and 24-inch marks? :)

Just because the shop keeper had a 33inch yard stick didn't mean he didn't compensate by measuring an additional 3 inches to each 33 inch yard.

Assuming that the shopkeeper gave change for the counterfeit $5, all of the other facts are irrelevant. The pirate received $5 worth of goods and cash in exchange for a worthless bill. The shopkeeper is out $5.

The shopkeeper tried to cheat with his yard-measure. And therefore 5$ is not the correct anwer. Shopkeepers in ancient Boston are measuring in yards first, then using feet, at last they use inches ...

The rope was originally measured in the factory where it was produced. So the 100 feet are really 3048 cm!

8) Sorry for my inaccuracy, I sometimes "forget" the cleverness of the audience here ;)

P.S.: The stick is a normal 2-colour yard stick. Foot one is 12 inches long and green. Second foot is red and 12 inches long. The third foot is green as foot number one, but only 9 inches long. Nobody in ancient Boston knows that, exept our pirate, who is smart enough to use that for his own purposes ...

[quote="koal"]The shopkeeper tried to cheat with his yard-measure. And therefore 5$ is not the correct anwer. Shopkeepers in ancient Boston are measuring in yards first, then using feet, at last they use inches ...
[/quote]

In that case, $5.03

So my extremely simple line of thinking tells me that the shopkeeper first measured 6 yards (18 feet) , but it was really 33*6 = 198 in, or 16.5 feet. Then he measured the last two feet accurately, resulting in a 18.5 foot segment. So the pirate took off with the remaining 81.5 foot section, which was worth 81.5*2 = 163 cents, so the shopkeeper is out $1.63.

Is this the proper line of thinking?

Except the shopkeeper would have charged him $1.60, and given change, so the shopkeeper is out the value of the rope, $1.63, and the $3.40 in change he gave the pirate.

[quote="trif"]Except the shopkeeper would have charged him $1.60, and given change, so the shopkeeper is out the value of the rope, $1.63, and the $3.40 in change he gave the pirate.[/quote]
Oh, I thought due to the hasty departure of the pirate, he just told the shopkeeper "keep the change," or something like that. That's honestly how I interpreted the original post.

[quote="eepiccolo"]Oh, I thought due to the hasty departure of the pirate, he just told the shopkeeper "keep the change," or something like that. That's honestly how I interpreted the original post.[/quote]
That's my thinking too. If that is the case, the shopkeeper is out the cost of the rope which if there was a 50% markup, he is out $1.00. This also assumes the shopkeeper kept the reel and that the reel can be reused at some future time.