Description:
Set of folding brass scales in a rectangular wooden box with dove-tailed corners and the lid held on with brass cotter pins, nail and hook clasp, which contains a steel balance beam, two brass pans suspended from brass swan neck pivots by cords, and 17 brass weights. A printed paper label is pasted to the inner lid: "A TABLE of the Weight of Gold." over a list of Values by "Grains," "Penny wt." and "Ounces" over "Note: Twenty-four Grains make one Penny-weight, Twenty Penny-weight one Ounce." over "ADVERTISEMENT. All Sorts of Beams, Scales, Weights, and Steelyards, made and sold by Samuel Grey, Cutler, in Market Street, Philadelphia." Smaller, portable scales, which were either held in the hand for weighing or hung from a metal stand, used the Roman system of the scruple, drachm, grain. These beam scales were used to measure the overall quantity of metal such as coins brought in by a client or provided by the silversmith for fashioning an object; measure the mixture of metals for solder in deterimining the amount of metal needed for casting; and calculate the client's cost by weight of finished piece. Brass weights have been used tradtionally since brass can be milled to exact weights. These scales were also used by apothecaries and physicians for weighing and compounding drugs and calculating fees. "S.G." is stamped in the center of the inside of each pan; "XII" scratched into bottom of each pan. Two of the weights, "10" and "17," are stamped "SG"; stamps on the other weights include crowns, "GP," "PS," "IC," "WT," "Drachm," "S" and numbers. "GP" is George Plumly (d.1754) who worked as a cutler in Philadelphia from 1717 until his death in 1754; and "PS" attributed to Peter Stretch (1670-1746), a clockmaker in Philadelphia. In 1709 in response to the many denominations and nationalities of coins circulating in the colonies, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvannia passed "an act for ascertaining the rates of payment of debts [by] reducing foreign coins to the same current rate" and to make "payments according to the rates enjoined more easy and expeditious, [that] there shall be sets of weights....which weights shall be prepared and sold by Peter Stretch and George Plumly of Philadelphia, who shall stamp their respective marks thereon and be accountable for their exactness."
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