CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 231 
silver in Ireland is Spanish Coyne known here by the name of a cob, or half 
a cob or a quarter cob.’ 
“A sort of pieces of eight at 4-6d each, which they call plate pieces, 
Mexicos, and Perues.’ ; 
‘The cobs that are weight, as well as the french crown, pass at 4s 9d, 
ee want a grain, or turn not the scale cr stilyard, they pass but at 
8. 6d. 
‘None here, either in market or publick-house, but with small scales weigh 
their silver, as well as their gold, before they take it.’ 
‘Here are also pieces of Portugall coyne wh go at 7s 6d, these only, and 
now and then a piece of English money pass unweighed.’ 
The early English types of scales were usually in elaborate wooden boxes, 
with recesses, pans, or lockers, cut out of the solid, for the scales and weights, 
the latter often being very numerous. Usually the balance-beam was of steel, 
the suspension-cords of twisted silk, and the pans and weights of brass. 
Occasionally tin, iron, copper, and even silver were used for pans, beams, and 
weights. Afterwards the boxes were covered with shagreen, leather, and 
other materials; still later they were usually of polished rosewood or mahogany ; 
then the boxes were of brass, steel, iron, or tin; the latest of all being made 
withcut boxes, on turned wood pillars or standards, and usually in brass. 
Early types of scales in boxes, though suitable for the office or counting- 
house, were rather cumbersome for the purpose of carrying about, and con- 
sequently neat scales in boxes with fewer weights, cr weights made one to fit 
within another, were brought into use. These at first were of the ordinary 
hanging-pan type, but the inconvenience of using separate weights, and the 
fact that they were liable to get lost, were apparently felt, and less awkward 
varieties were made. At first these appear to have been in the form of a 
fixed steelyard with a sliding weight, but later were supplanted by the 
familiar compact folding scales, with all the pieces fixed, the weights of 
the different coins being ascertained by an ingenious arrangement of 
hinged weights made to turn cver according to the nature of the coin to be 
dealt with. With some an additional slide indicates slight variations in the 
weights of the coins; so much so that, according to the directions on some of 
the boxes and the figures marked on the balance-beams, the loss of even a 
farthing’s worth of gold could be ascertained. 
Towards the end of the eighteenth century. and early in the nineteenth, 
when the Yorkshire coiners were in vogue, scales for testing the weight and 
thickness of the gold coins, and even of the silver coins, were common, 
especially in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Names of scale-makers in Ormskirk, 
Kirkby, Warrington, and Liverpool are frequent. Usually the scales were 
made by watch- and clcck-makers, a fact plainly obvious on an examination 
of the details of the scales. The boxes were made of a suitable size for 
carrying in the waistcoat pocket, and averaged five inches in length by 
one inch in width and three-quarters of an inch in depth. Sometimes they were 
even less, one in our possession being less than two and a quarter inches in 
length, three-quarters cf an inch in width, and slightly over a quarter of an 
‘inch in depth. ‘This is the smallest I have seen. These boxes were made in 
considerable numbers, so great indeed that the early directories contain entries 
cf ‘watch makers and scale makers,’ &c. ay 
In Queen Elizabeth’s reign a proclamation was issued * (1587-8) giving 
details of the money-scales and weights issued in her time. The proclamation 
contains ‘a declaration of an order for the making of certain small cases 
for balances and weights, to weigh all manner of gold coin current within 
the realm, provided to be sold to all persons that should have cause to use 
the same, and which had been viewed by the wardens and assistants of the 
company of goldsmiths in Londcn, by whom it was signed, limiting the 
sundry prices thereof according to their several quantities; which cases, with 
the balances and weights, had been made by order of the master of her 
Majesty’s mint in the Tower of London, and viewed, allowed, and set at 
° See L. A, Lawrence, ‘Coin Weights,’ Brit, Numismatic Journ, yol. Vi. 
1909. 
