PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 245 



Discrimination of Nails — Why Called Sixpenny, Eight- 

 penny, &c. 



Mr. George Barney, Swanton, Vt., says : " Fifty years ago, or 

 more, my father made nails to sell the early settlers in these parts. 

 They were cut from plate by a machine worked by hand, and each 

 nail separately headed by hand. He has told me they sold nails 

 those days by count, not by weight, and the small nails were less 

 in price per one hundred than large ones. So I conclude that in 

 past generations in England that they sold one hundred small 

 nails for four pence, and these took the name of fourpenny nails, 

 one hundred eightpenny nails at eight pence, one hundred nails 

 at ten pence, &c." 



Mr. Nathaniel Richards, Biberry, Pa., thinks the name originated 

 from the fact that a "fourpenny nail" weighs four pennyweights, 

 and so on of the other denomination. 



Mr. H. N. Gates, Buckhamstead, Conn. — I investigated this 

 point some years ago, while in trade in Canada. The result of 

 my investigation was that the name originated among the English 

 nailors, who were paid so man}- pence per hundred, as the name 

 indicates, for manufacturing wrought nails. Before the invention 

 of cut nails, all nails were always sold in the British wholesale 

 market by the hundred, and not by the thousand." 



Mr. Wm. Soule, Dover Plains, New York, gives the following 

 solution of this problem: " George P. Marsh, one of the best 

 of American authorities in philology, says: ['Lectures on the 

 English language ' (1st series), page 184, note.] ' Sixpenny, eight- 

 penny, tenpenny nails are nails of such sizes, that a thousand will 

 weigh six, eight or ten pounds, and in this phrase, therefore, 

 penny seems to be a corruption of pound.' " 



Mr. John Jameson, Boyleston School, Boston, says: "I learned, 

 many years ago, that it was because so many pence were paid for 

 a given number; as fourpence for one hundred of a certain size, 

 twenty pence for one hundred of another and much larger size, &c. 



Mr. Samuel Scantlebury, Chicago, 111. — I am a native of Shef- 

 field, England, where nails are manufactured on a very large 

 scale. When a little boy I was sent to the hardware stores for 

 nails. They were then sold at retail, altogether by the hundred. 

 Thus, for fourpenny, you got one hundred nails of the same length 

 as our present fourpenny nails; for sixpence, eightpence, or ten- 

 pence, you received one hundred of sixpenny, eightpenny, or ten- 

 penny nails, corresponding in length, etc., to the nails of the 



