Which commodity prices are records once inflation is removed?

Of the 1 benchmark prices below, 5 set a record in cash terms in the last six months, but none is within 5% of its peak once prices are adjusted for US inflation. The closest is tobacco, at 34% of its real peak. 0 cost a quarter or less of what they did at their real peak, and 0 of those peaked in the 1970s.

A cash price record says little on its own, because a dollar bought far more in 1974 than it does in the latest month on file. Adjusting each monthly average by the US consumer price index (in 2024 dollars) lets old and new prices be compared. The last column shows the latest real price as a share of the highest real price in the series. See nominal versus real prices for how the adjustment works. Data to July 2026; click a heading to sort.

Every benchmark price against its record high, nominal and in 2024 dollars
Commodity	Latest price	Record (cash)	When	Real peak	Latest as % of real peak	5 years	20 years
Tobacco US import unit value, unmanufactured	$6,775/t	$7,054/t	August 2025	January 1960	34%	+66%	+129%

World Bank Commodity Price Data (the Pink Sheet), primary series for each commodity, monthly averages; US consumer price index from FRED (BLS). Series start at different dates (most in 1960), so "peak" means the highest month in the series shown. Cash changes over 20 years are only shown where the series is at least 20 years long. Prices are monthly benchmark averages and are not investment advice.

More patterns

Concentration: How much of each commodity comes from one country?
Producer or exporter?: Is the biggest producer also the biggest seller abroad?
Growth and decline: Whose output is rising or falling fastest?
Linked prices and seasons: Which prices move together, and which have a season?
A century of real prices: Are minerals getting scarcer, judging by their real prices since 1900?
Supplier exposure: Which big buyers lean on one supplier for critical minerals?
Trade after export controls: What happened to a country's exports after it controlled them?
Export share history: Who has gained and lost share of world exports since 2000?
Prices around export controls: What happened to mineral prices after export controls?
Export basket prices: What would a country's commodity exports have fetched at each month's prices?
Substitution coverage: How large are other exporters' sales to other buyers next to an importer's biggest supplier?
Critical risk matrix: Which critical minerals combine concentrated mining, export controls and import reliance?
Country reserve life: Which producing countries have the least of what they mine?
Prices and cumulative output: Do prices fall as the world digs up more of a mineral?
US import reliance and recycling: How much of each mineral does the United States import, and how much comes from scrap?
Data confidence: How firm are each commodity's production numbers?
Export controls and bans: Which governments restrict exports of minerals, and what is still in force?
Chokepoints: Which narrow passages do the world's commodities depend on?
By-product minerals: Which minerals are by-products of other metals?
Peak production: Which minerals and fuels are still setting records, and which peaked years ago?
Reserves and mining: Where are the deposits, and who digs them up?
Supply concentration: Which commodities depend on the fewest suppliers?
Land or yield?: Did output grow because farmers planted more or farmed better?
Supply shocks and prices: When world output falls, do prices rise?
Category price indices: How have energy, metals and food prices moved since 1960?
Drawdowns and volatility: How far do prices fall, and do they recover?
Stocks and prices: Are prices lower when the world holds more stock?
Which prices follow oil?: How closely does each commodity track crude oil?
How reliable is the data?: How much of world output rests on estimates?
Net exporters and importers: Who is a net seller and who a net buyer?
Country leaders: Which countries lead across the most commodities?
Export dependency: Which countries rely on one commodity?
Concentration over time: Has production spread out or narrowed?
Import dependency: Which countries buy most of a commodity from one supplier?
Supplier shifts: Who gained and lost importers' business?
Trade price against benchmark: Does traded product sell above or below the benchmark price?
Prices in other currencies: How much of a price move is the dollar?
Do prices lead each other?: Does one commodity price move before another?
Volatility over time: Are prices more volatile than they used to be?
Seasonality: Which prices have a calendar-month pattern?
Price ratios: What does one commodity buy of another, and is that high or low?
El Niño and prices: Do El Niño and La Niña years move commodity prices?
Who consumes it: Which countries consume each commodity, and how much per person?
Self-sufficiency: Which large markets depend on imports, and which produce far more than they use?
Trade flows: Who sells each commodity to whom?

Every figure is computed from the same tables as the commodity pages. The full set is in patterns.json, and single facts from it appear each day on the facts page.