What items were once considered valuable but are worthless today?

QUESTION: What substances or items were once considered valuable but are thought to be relatively worthless today?

In the 17th and 18th centuries, pineapples were one of the most expensive commodities in the world. They could cost around £60 each (nearly £10,000 today).

They were never eaten. Instead, wealthy people would hire them for display on their dinner-party tables.

You can see lots of the fruit ­displayed on top of buildings and metal fence posts all over London, as well as atop the Wimbledon men's trophy, as a reminder of their value.

William Hardon, London SW8

Aluminium was extremely rare and difficult to produce in the mid-19th century. Napoleon III of France famously had aluminium cutlery reserved for his most honoured guests, while lesser guests used mere gold.

Technological advances such as the Hall-Heroult process in 1886 made aluminium extraction much easier, drastically lowering its cost. It is now used in everything from cans and foil to coating aeroplanes.

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, spices such as pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon were worth more than their weight in gold but are now available for a few pounds at the supermarket.

Emma Wilson, Maidenhead, Berks

QUESTION: Have any left-handed golfers played right-handed?

Natural left-handers who have won Majors playing right-handed include Nick Price, Curtis Strange, David Graham and Johnny Miller.

Historically, left-handers took up golf right-handed because of the lack of suitable equipment. Furthermore, most instruction and training aids are right-handed.

Curtis Strange has talked about how he plays pool and shoots left-handed but executed a terrible slice when trying to golf left-handed.

David Graham, an Australian golfer, played for several years as a left-hander before his coach ­persuaded him to swap sides. It ­certainly worked. He won the U.S. PGA Championship in 1979 and the U.S. Open in 1981.

Conversely, Bob Charles, Mike Weir and Phil Mickelson are right-handed golfers who play left-handed.

Paul Price, Willerby, North Yorks

QUESTION: Did the Nazis have concentration camps in Norway?

After the German invasion of Norway in spring 1940, 620 prison camps were established for the detention of Norwegians and prisoners of war.

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Six are identifiable as concentration camps in the true sense of the word, i.e. places where people were locked up without trial for their political beliefs, sexual orientation or racial origins, rather than for criminal activity.

Berg was a concentration camp near Tonsberg. Its first prisoners were 60 Jews who arrived in October 1942. Most of the Jewish prisoners were subsequently deported to the extermination camps and replaced by Norwegian political prisoners.

Bredtveit Prison had started out as a home for young boys but was turned into a prison following the German invasion. It was mainly used to house political prisoners, many of whom were academics, but also some Jewish prisoners before they were sent to Auschwitz.

Falstad had been a boys' boarding school, but in 1941 the Nazis took it over for use as a prison. Records show the citizens of more than 15 countries were held there.

Grini was the most notorious and, with a population of almost 20,000, the largest of the camps in Norway.

It had started out as a women's prison but became a police prison camp in 1941.

It mostly held political detainees and some Russian prisoners of war. However, the survivors of Operation Checkmate, a British commando raid (April 28 to May 15, 1942) were also briefly kept there, as were ­survivors of Operation Freshman (November 19, 1942), a failed attack on the heavy water plant at Vemork. Almost all the commandos were either executed at Grini or sent to other concentration camps, where they were later executed.

Ulven was a military camp converted to house prisoners. Most of its detainees were Jews or ­Communists. The camp is now used to train the Norwegian equivalent of the Home Guard.

Espeland prison camp mainly served as an overflow for nearby Ulven but it was also used as a transit camp for prisoners being moved on to Grini. After the war, it housed Norwegian collaborators and Nazi war criminals.

Norway had only a small Jewish population of about 2,100 in 1940, many of whom were refugees from Germany and Austria. Widespread arrests of Jews started in 1942. About 1,000 escaped to neighbouring Sweden, which was neutral, but around 770 were deported; only 34 are known to have survived.

Bob Cubitt, Northampton